Download Western Civilization

Western Civilization
A Brief History
Volume I: To 1789
Seventh Edition
Marvin Perry
Baruch College
City University of New York
George W. Bock, Editorial Associate
Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States
Chapter 3
The Greeks:
From Myth to Reason
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Early Aegean Civilizations
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Evolution of the City-States
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The Decline of the City-States
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Philosophy in the Hellenic Age
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Art
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Poetry and Drama
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History
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The Hellenistic Age: The Second Stage of Greek Civilization
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Hellenistic Thought and Culture
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The Greek Achievement: Reason, Freedom, Humanism
Focus Questions
1. What were the basic features and limitations of Greek democracy?
2. How did Greek political life demonstrate both the best and the worst
features of freedom as well as both the capabilities and limitations
of reason?
3. Why is the Greek political experience crucial to the shaping of the
Western tradition?
4. How did the Pre-Socratic thinkers make the transition from myth to reason?
5. How did the Sophists and Socrates advance the tradition of reason
and humanism?
6. What do Plato and Aristotle have in common? How do they differ?
7. How did Greek drama, art, and historiography contribute to the tradition of
reason and humanism?
8. What are the basic differences between the Hellenic and Hellenistic Ages?
9. What prescription did each of the Hellenistic philosophies offer for
achieving happiness?
10. What is the enduring significance of Stoicism for the modern world?
See our website for additional materials: www.cengage.com/history/perry/westcivbrief7e
T
he Hebrew conception of ethical monotheism, with its stress
on human dignity, is one principal source of the Western tradition. The second major source is ancient Greece. Both Hebrews
and Greeks absorbed the achievements of Near Eastern civilizations, but they also developed their own distinctive viewpoints
and styles of thought, which set them apart from the Mesopotamians and Egyptians. The great achievements of the Hebrews
lay in the sphere of religious-ethical thought; those of the Greeks
lay in the development of philosophical and scientific thought.
The Greeks conceived of nature as following general rules, not
acting according to the whims of gods or demons. They saw
human beings as having a capacity for rational thought, a need for
freedom, and a worth as individuals. Although the Greeks never
dispensed with the gods, they increasingly stressed the importance of human reason and human decisions; they came to assert
that reason is the avenue to knowledge and that people—not the
Chronology 3.1
❖
The Greeks
1700–1450 B.C.*
Height of Minoan civilization
1400–1230
Height of Mycenaean civilization
1100–800
Dark Age
c. 700
Homer
750–550
Age of Colonization
594
Solon is given power to institute reforms
507
Cleisthenes broadens democratic institutions
480
Xerxes of Persia invades Greece; Greek naval victory at Salamis
479
Spartans defeat Persians at Plataea, ending Persian Wars
431
Start of Peloponnesian War
404
Athens surrenders to Sparta, ending Peloponnesian War
387
Plato founds a school, the Academy
359
Philip II becomes king of Macedonia
338
Battle of Chaeronea: Greek city-states fall under dominion of Macedonia
335
Aristotle founds a school, the Lyceum
323 B.C.
Death of Alexander the Great
*Most dates are approximations.
gods—are responsible for their own behavior. In
this shift of attention from the gods to human beings, the Greeks broke with the myth-making orientation of the Near East and created the rational
humanist outlook that is a distinctive feature of
Western civilization. ❖
EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIONS
Until the latter part of the nineteenth century, historians placed the beginning of Greek (or Hellenic)
history in the eighth century b.c. Now it is known
that two civilizations preceded Hellenic Greece:
the Minoan and the Mycenaean. Although the ancient Greek poet Homer had spoken of an earlier
Greek civilization in his works, historians had believed that Homer’s epics dealt solely with myths
and legends, not with a historical past. In 1871,
however, a successful German businessman, Heinrich Schliemann, began a search for earliest Greece.
In excavating several sites mentioned by Homer,
38
Schliemann discovered tombs, pottery, ornaments,
and the remains of palaces of what hitherto had
been a lost Greek civilization. The ancient civilization was named after Mycenae, the most important city of the time.
In 1900, Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist,
excavating on the island of Crete, southeast of the
Greek mainland, unearthed a civilization even older
than that of the Mycenaean Greeks. The Cretans, or
Minoans, were not Greeks and did not speak a Greek
language, but their influence on mainland Greece
was considerable and enduring. Minoan civilization
lasted about 1,350 years (2600–1250 b.c.) and
reached its height during the period from 1700 to
1450 b.c.
The centers of Minoan civilization were magnificent palace complexes, whose construction attested to the wealth and power of Minoan kings.
The palaces housed royal families, priests, and government officials and contained workshops that produced decorated silver vessels, daggers, and pottery
for local use and for export.
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Judging by the archaeological evidence, the Minoans were peaceful. Minoan art generally did not
depict military scenes, and Minoan palaces, unlike
the Mycenaean ones, had no defensive walls or
fortifications. Thus, the Minoans were vulnerable
to the warlike Mycenaean Greeks, whose invasion
contributed to the decline of Minoan civilization.
Who were these Mycenaeans? Around 2000
b.c., Greek-speaking tribes moved southward into
the Greek peninsula, where, together with the preGreek population, they fashioned the Mycenaean
civilization. In the Peloponnesus, in southern
Greece, the Mycenaeans built palaces that were
based in part on Cretan models. In these palaces,
Mycenaean kings conducted affairs of state, and
priests and priestesses performed religious ceremonies. Potters, smiths, tailors, and chariot builders practiced their crafts in the numerous
workshops, much like their Minoan counterparts.
Mycenaean arts and crafts owed a considerable
debt to Crete. A script that permitted record keeping probably also came from Crete.
Mycenaean civilization, which consisted of several small states, each with its own ruling dynasty,
reached its height in the period from 1400 to 1230
b.c. Following that, constant warfare among the
Mycenaean kingdoms (and perhaps foreign invasions) led to the destruction of the palaces and the
abrupt disintegration of Mycenaean civilization
about 1100 b.c. But to the later Greek civilization,
the Mycenaeans left a legacy of religious forms,
pottery making, metallurgy, agriculture, language,
a warrior culture and code of honor immortalized
in the Homeric epics, and myths and legends that
offered themes for Greek drama.
EVOLUTION
OF THE
CITY-STATES
From 1100 to 800 b.c., the Greek world passed
through the Dark Age, an era of transition between a dead Mycenaean civilization and a still
unborn Hellenic civilization. The Dark Age saw the
migration of Greek tribes from the barren mountainous regions of Greece to more fertile plains, and
from the mainland to Aegean islands and the coast
of Asia Minor. During this period, the Greeks experienced insecurity, warfare, poverty, and isolation.
After 800 b.c., however, town life revived.
Writing again became part of the Greek culture,
❖
39
this time with the more efficient Phoenician script.
(Other borrowings from the Near East included
artistic imagery and motifs, religious practices,
craft skills, and mythological tales that were
adapted and transformed by Greek poets.) The
population increased dramatically, there was a
spectacular rise in the use of metals, and overseas
trade expanded. Gradually, Greek cities founded
settlements on the islands of the Aegean, along the
coast of Asia Minor and the Black Sea, and to the
west in Sicily and southern Italy. These colonies,
established to relieve overpopulation and land
hunger, were independent, self-governing citystates, not possessions of the homeland city-states.
During these two hundred years of colonization
(750–550 b.c.), trade and industry expanded and
the pace of urbanization quickened.
Homer: Shaper of the Greek Spirit
The poet Homer lived during the eighth century
b.c., just after the Dark Age. His great epics, the
Iliad and the Odyssey, helped shape the Greek
spirit and Greek religion. Homer was the earliest
molder of the Greek outlook and character. For
centuries, Greek youngsters grew up reciting the
Homeric epics and admiring the Homeric heroes,
who strove for honor and faced suffering and
death with courage.
Homer was a poetic genius who could reveal
a human being’s deepest thoughts, feelings, and
conflicts in a few brilliant lines. His characters,
complex in their motives and expressing powerful
human emotions—wrath, vengeance, guilt, remorse,
compassion, and love—would intrigue and inspire
Western writers to the present day.
The Iliad deals in poetic form with a small segment of the last year of the Trojan War, which had
taken place centuries before Homer’s time, during
the Mycenaean period. Homer’s theme is the wrath
of Achilles. In depriving “the swift and excellent”
Achilles of his rightful war prize (the captive young
woman Briseis), King Agamemnon has insulted
Achilles’ honor and has violated the solemn rule
that warrior heroes treat each other with respect.
His pride wounded, Achilles refuses to rejoin Agamemnon in battle against Troy. Achilles plans to
affirm his honor by demonstrating that the Greeks
need his valor and military prowess. Not until many
40 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
brave men have been slain, including his dearest
friend Patroclus, does Achilles set aside his quarrel
with Agamemnon and enter the battle.
Homer employs a particular event, the quarrel
between an arrogant Agamemnon and a revengeful Achilles, to demonstrate a universal principle:
that “wicked arrogance” and “ruinous wrath” will
cause much suffering and death. Homer grasps
that there is an internal logic to existence. For Homer,
says British classicist H. D. F. Kitto, “actions must
have their consequences; ill-judged actions must
have uncomfortable results.”1 People, and even the
gods, operate within a certain unalterable framework; their deeds are subject to the demands of fate,
or necessity. With a poet’s insight, Homer sensed
what would become a fundamental attitude of the
Greek mind: there is a universal order to things.
Later Greeks would formulate Homer’s poetic insight in scientific and philosophical terms.
Heroism, the pursuit of glory and fame, and
war’s exhilaration are central to the Iliad, but
Homer is also sensitive to the suffering caused by
war. Battlefields littered with dead and maimed
warriors fill soldiers with tears. And the grief of
widows, orphans, and parents is unremitting.
Homer grasped war’s tragic character: it confers
honor and dignity on the victorious, but suffering,
grief, enslavement, and death on the defeated. And
one day, the hero, who had been lauded for his courage and prowess and had brought glory to his family
and city, will also perish by the sword. This is his
destiny. Homer’s insights into life’s tragic nature instructed the great Greek dramatists (see page 60)
and future Western writers.
In Homer, we also see the origin of the Greek
ideal of arête, excellence. The Homeric warrior expresses a passionate desire to assert himself, to
demonstrate his worth, to gain the glory that poets
would immortalize in their songs. In the warrioraristocrat world of Homer, excellence was principally interpreted as bravery and skill in battle.
Homer’s portrayal also bears the embryo of a larger
conception of human excellence, one that combines
thought with action. A man of true worth, says the
wise Phoenix to the stubborn Achilles, is both “a
speaker of words and a doer of deeds.” In this passage, we find the earliest statement of the Greek
educational ideal: the molding of a man who, says
classicist Werner Jaeger, “united nobility of action
with nobility of mind,” who realized “the whole of
human potentialities.”2 Thus, in Homer we find
the beginnings of Greek humanism—a concern
with man and his achievements.
Essentially, Homer’s works are an expression of
the poetic imagination and mythical thought. However, his view of the eternal order of the world and
his conception of the individual striving for excellence form the foundations of the Greek outlook.
Although Homer did not intend his poetry to
have any theological significance, his treatment of
the gods had important religious implications for
the Greeks. In time, his epics formed the basis of the
Olympian religion accepted throughout Greece.
The principal gods were said to reside on Mount
Olympus, and on its highest peak was the palace
of Zeus, the chief deity. Religion pervaded daily
life, but in time, traditional religion was challenged
and undermined by a growing secular and rational spirit.
The Break with Theocratic Politics
From 750 b.c. to the death of Alexander the Great in
323 b.c., Greek society comprised many independent
city-states. The city-state based on tribal allegiances
was generally the first political association during
the early stages of civilization. Moreover, Greece’s
many mountains, bays, and islands—natural barriers to political unity—favored this type of political
arrangement.
The scale of the city-state, or polis, was small;
most city-states had fewer than 5,000 male citizens.
Athens, which was a large city-state, had some
35,000 to 40,000 adult male citizens at its height
in the fifth century b.c.; the rest of its population
of 350,000 consisted of women, children, resident
aliens, and slaves, none of whom could participate in lawmaking. The polis gave individuals a
sense of belonging, for its citizens were intimately
involved in the political and cultural life of the
community.
In the fifth century b.c., at its maturity, the
Greeks viewed their polis as the only avenue to
the good life—“the only framework within which
man could realize his spiritual, moral, and intellectual capacities,” in Kitto’s words.3 The mature
polis was a self-governing community that expressed the will of free citizens, not the desires of
gods, hereditary kings, or priests. In the Near
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East, religion dominated political activity, and to
abide by the mandates of the gods was the ruler’s
first responsibility. The Greek polis also had begun as a religious institution, in which the citizens
sought to maintain an alliance with their deities.
Gradually, however, the citizens de-emphasized
the gods’ role in political life and based government not on the magic powers of divine rulers,
but on human intelligence as expressed through
the community. The great innovation that the
Greeks introduced into politics and social theory
was the principle that law did not derive from
gods or divine kings, but from the human community. Seers, purported to have supernatural
skills, might offer advice but could not override
the rulings of the Assembly.
The emergence of rational attitudes did not, of
course, spell the end of religion, particularly for
the peasants, who retained their devotion to their
ancient cults, gods, and shrines. Paying homage to
the god of the city remained a required act of patriotism, to which Greeks unfailingly adhered. Thus,
the religious-mythical tradition never died in Greece
but existed side by side with a growing rationalism,
becoming weaker as time passed. When Athenian
democracy reached its height in the middle of the
fifth century b.c., religion was no longer the dominant factor in politics. Athenians had consciously
come to rely on human reason, not divine guidance, in their political and intellectual life.
What made Greek political life different from
that of earlier Near Eastern civilizations, and also
gave it enduring significance, was the Greeks’ gradual realization that community problems are caused
by human beings and require human solutions. The
Greeks also valued free citizenship. An absolute
king, a despot, who ruled arbitrarily and by decree
and who was above the law, was abhorrent to them.
The ideals of political freedom are best exemplified by Athens. But before turning to Athens, let
us examine another Greek city, which followed a
different political course.
Sparta: A Garrison State
Situated on the Peloponnesian peninsula, Sparta
conquered its neighbors, including Messenia, in the
eighth century b.c. Instead of selling the Messenians abroad, the traditional Greek way of treating
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a defeated foe, the Spartans kept them as state
serfs, or helots. Helots were owned by the state
rather than by individual Spartans. Enraged by their
enforced servitude, the Messenians, also a Greek
people, desperately tried to regain their freedom.
After a bloody uprising was suppressed, the fear
of a helot revolt became indelibly stamped on Spartan consciousness.
To maintain their dominion over the Messenians, who outnumbered them ten to one, the
Spartans—with extraordinary single-mindedness,
discipline, and loyalty—transformed their own society into an armed camp. Agricultural labor was
performed by helots; trade and crafts were left to
the perioikoi, conquered Greeks who were free but
who had no political rights. The Spartans learned
only one craft, soldiering, and were inculcated with
only one conception of excellence: fighting bravely
for their city, and if needed, dying for it.
The Spartans were trained in the arts of war
and indoctrinated to serve the state. Military training for Spartan boys began at age seven; they exercised, drilled, competed, and endured physical
hardships. Other Greeks admired the Spartans for
their courage, obedience to law, and achievement
in molding themselves according to an ideal. Spartan soldiers were better trained and disciplined
and were more physically fit than other Greeks.
But the Spartans were also criticized for having a
limited conception of arête.
Athens: The Rise of Democracy
The contrast between the city-states of Athens and
Sparta is striking. Whereas Sparta was a land power
and exclusively agricultural, Athens, which was located on the peninsula of Attica near the coast, possessed a great navy and was the commercial leader
among the Greeks. To the Spartans, freedom meant
preserving the independence of their fatherland;
this overriding consideration demanded order, discipline, and regimentation. The Athenians also
were determined to protect their city from enemies,
but, unlike the Spartans, they valued political freedom and sought the full development and enrichment
of the human personality. Thus, while authoritarian and militaristic Sparta turned culturally sterile,
the relatively free and open society of Athens became
the cultural leader of Hellenic civilization.
42 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
DETAIL OF GREEK KYLIX (CUP) C. 490–480 B.C. The frenzied dancing of the Bacchantes, worshipers of the god Dionysius, is depicted by the vase painter Macron.
Maenads (mad-ones) dressed in fawn skins and carrying the thrysos, a wand
made of vine leaves, leap and carouse in ecstatic orgies with satyrs in worship of
the god of wine and sexual liberation. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers
Fund, 1906 [06.115.2]/Art Resource, N.Y.)
Greek city-states generally moved through four
stages: rule by a king (monarchy), rule by landowning aristocrats (oligarchy), rule by one man
who seized power (tyranny), and rule by the people
(democracy). During the first stage, monarchy, the
king, who derived his power from the gods, commanded the army and judged civil cases.
Oligarchy, the second stage, was instituted in
Athens during the eighth century b.c. when aristocrats (aristocracy is a Greek word meaning “rule
of the best”) usurped power from hereditary kings.
In the next century, aristocratic regimes experienced a social crisis. Peasants who borrowed from
the aristocracy, pledging their lands as security,
lost their property and even became enslaved for
nonpayment of their debts. Merchants and peasants also protested that the law, which was based
on oral tradition and administered exclusively by
aristrocrats, was unjust. In Athens, the embittered
and restless middle and lower classes were granted
one concession. In 621 b.c., the aristocrats appointed Draco to draw up a code of law. Although
Draco’s code let the poor know what the law was
and reduced the possibility that aristocratic judges
would behave arbitrarily, penalties were extremely
severe, and the code provided no relief for the
peasants’ economic woes. As the poor began to organize and press for the cancellation of their debts
and the redistribution of land, Athens was moving
toward civil war.
Solon, the Reformer In 594 b.c., Solon (c. 640–
559 b.c.), a traveler and poet with a reputation for
wisdom, was elected chief executive. He maintained
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MACEDONIA
Byzantium
IT
Y
AL
Thasos
CHALCIDICE
Mt. Olympus
Hellespont
THESSALY
Aegean
Sea
Lesbos
Thermopylae
Chaeronea
IA
Euboea
Delphi
OT Thebes
on BOE
elic
Plataea
H
Marathon
.
t
M
A
IO
LYDIA
N
Samos
Paros
IA
C
AR
Ionian Sea
ASIA MINOR
Chios
C
TI
AT
Athens
Corinth
A
Mycenae Salamis
DI
PO
Olympia
A
Argos
NN
ES
US
MESSENIA
Sparta
LACONIA
LO
PE
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Troy
Lemnos
Corcyra
Delos
Melos
Rhodes
Major battle
0
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Mediterranean Sea
Knossos
100 Km.
50
100 Mi.
Crete
Map 3.1 The Aegean Basin This map shows major battle sites. Note also the
Hellespont where Xerxes’ forces crossed into Greece, and Ionia, the coast of Asia
Minor, where Greek philosophy was born.
that the wealthy landowners, through their greed,
had disrupted community life and brought Athens to
the brink of civil war. Solon initiated a rational approach to the problems of society by de-emphasizing
the gods’ role in human affairs and attributing the
city’s ills to the specific behavior of individuals; he
sought practical remedies for these ills; and he held
that written law should be in harmony with Diké,
the principle of justice that underlies the human
community. At the same time, he wanted to instill in
Athenians of all classes a sense of working for the
common good of the city.
Solon aimed at restoring a sick Athenian society
to health by restraining the nobles and improving
the lot of the poor. To achieve this goal, he canceled
debts, freed Athenians enslaved for debt, and
brought back to Athens those who had been sold
abroad; however, he refused to confiscate and redistribute the nobles’ land as the extremists demanded.
He permitted all classes of free men, even the poorest, to sit in the Assembly, which elected magistrates
and accepted or rejected legislation proposed by a
new Council of Four Hundred. He also opened
the highest offices in the state to wealthy commoners, who had previously been excluded from these
positions because they lacked noble birth. Thus,
Solon undermined the traditional rights of the
hereditary aristocracy and initiated the transformation of Athens from an aristocratic oligarchy into
a democracy.
Solon also instituted ingenious economic
reforms. Recognizing that the poor soil of Attica
was not conducive to growing grain, he urged the
cultivation of grapes for wine and the growing of
44 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
Pisistratus, the Tyrant
In 546 b.c., Pisistratus
(c. 605–527 b.c.), an aristocrat, took advantage of
the general instability to become a one-man ruler,
driving into exile those who had opposed him.
Tyranny thus replaced oligarchy. Tyranny occurred
frequently in the Greek city-states. Almost always
aristocrats themselves, tyrants generally posed as
champions of the poor in their struggle against the
aristocracy. Pisistratus sought popular support by
having conduits constructed to increase the Athenian water supply; like tyrants in other city-states,
he gave to peasants land confiscated from exiled aristocrats and granted state loans to small farmers.
Pisistratus’ great achievement was the promotion of cultural life. He initiated grand architectural projects, encouraged sculptors and painters,
arranged for public recitals of the Homeric epics,
and founded festivals, which included dramatic
performances. In all these ways, he made culture,
formerly the province of the aristocracy, available
to commoners. Pisistratus thus launched a policy
that eventually led Athens to emerge as the cultural capital of the Greeks.
Cleisthenes, the Democrat Shortly after Pisis-
GRECIAN WARRIORS. The Greek warriors in this vase
painting have weapons and armor very much like
those used by the Greeks in the Persian Wars.
(Alinari/Art Resource, N.Y.)
olives, whose oil could be exported. To encourage
industrial expansion, he ordered that all fathers
teach their sons a trade and granted citizenship to
foreign craftsmen who were willing to migrate to
Athens. These measures and the fine quality of the
native reddish-brown clay allowed Athens to become the leading producer and exporter of pottery. Solon’s economic policies transformed Athens
into a great commercial center. However, Solon’s
reforms did not eliminate factional disputes among
the aristocratic clans or relieve much of the discontent of the poor.
tratus’ death, a faction headed by Cleisthenes, an
aristocrat sympathetic to democracy, assumed leadership. By an ingenious method of redistricting the
city, Cleisthenes ended the aristocratic clans’ traditional jockeying for the chief state positions, which
had caused much divisiveness and bitterness in
Athens. Cleisthenes replaced this practice, rooted
in tradition and authority, with a new system, rationally planned to ensure that historic allegiance
to tribe or clan would be superseded by loyalty to
the city as a whole.
Cleisthenes hoped to make democracy the permanent form of government for Athens. To safeguard the city against tyranny, he utilized (or
perhaps introduced) the practice of ostracism. Once
a year, Athenians were given the opportunity to
inscribe on a fragment of pottery (ostracon) the
name of anyone who, they felt, endangered the
state. An individual against whom enough votes
were cast was ostracized, that is, forced to leave
Athens for ten years.
Cleisthenes firmly secured democratic government in Athens. The Assembly, which Solon had
opened to all male citizens, was in the process of
becoming the supreme authority in the state. But
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the period of Athenian greatness lay in the future;
the Athenians first had to fight a war of survival
against the Persian Empire.
The Persian Wars
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In 499 b.c., the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor rebelled against their Persian overlord. Sympathetic
to the Ionian cause, Athens sent twenty ships to aid
the revolt. Bent on revenge, Darius I, king of Persia,
sent a small detachment to Attica. In 490 b.c., on
the plains of Marathon, the citizen army of Athens
defeated the Persians—for the Athenians, one of
the finest moments in their history. Ten years later,
Xerxes, Darius’ son, organized a huge invasion
force—some 250,000 men and more than 500
ships—with the aim of reducing Greece to a Persian
province. Setting aside their separatist instincts,
many of the city-states united to defend their independence and their liberty. The historian Herodotus viewed the conflict as an ideological clash
between Greek freedom and oriental despotism.
The Persians crossed the waters of the Hellespont (Dardanelles) and made their way into northern Greece. Herodotus describes their encounter
at the mountain pass of Thermopylae with three
hundred Spartans, who, true to their training and
ideal of arête, “resisted to the last with their swords
if they had them, and if not, with their hands and
teeth, until the Persians, coming on from the front
over the ruins of the wall and closing in from behind, finally overwhelmed them.”4 Northern Greece
fell to the Persians, who continued south, burning
a deserted Athens.
When it appeared that the Greeks’ spirit had
been broken, the Athenian statesman and general
Themistocles (c. 527–460 b.c.), demonstrating in
military affairs the same rationality that Cleisthenes
had shown in political life, lured the Persian fleet
into the narrows of the Bay of Salamis. Unable to
deploy its more numerous ships in this cramped
space, the Persian armada was destroyed by Greek
ships. In 479 b.c., a year after the Athenian naval
victory at Salamis, the Spartans defeated the Persians in the land battle of Plataea. The inventive
intelligence with which the Greeks had planned
their military operations and a fierce desire to preserve their freedom—which, the war made them
realize, was their distinguishing attribute—had
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enabled them to defeat the greatest military power
the Mediterranean world had yet seen.
The Persian Wars were decisive in the history
of the West. The confidence and pride that came
with its astonishing victory propelled Athens into
a golden age, whose achievements were pivotal in
the shaping of European culture. But the conflict
also roused the Athenian urge for dominance in
Greece. The Persian Wars ushered in an era of Athenian imperialism, which had drastic consequences
for the future. Immediately after the wars, more
than 150 city-states organized a confederation, the
Delian League (named after its treasury on the island
of Delos), to protect themselves against a renewed
confrontation with Persia. Because of its wealth, its
powerful fleet, and the restless energy of its citizens,
Athens assumed leadership of the Delian League.
Athenians consciously and rapaciously manipulated
the league for their own economic advantage, seeing no contradiction between imperialism and
democracy. Athens forbade member states to withdraw, stationed garrisons on the territory of confederate states, and used the league’s treasury to
finance public works in Athens. Although member
states did receive protection from both pirates and
Persians, were not overtaxed, and enjoyed increased
trade, they resented Athenian domination. As the
Persian threat subsided, hatred for Athenian imperialism grew. In converting the Delian League into
an instrument of Athenian imperialism, Athens may
have lost an opportunity to perform a great creative
act—the creation of a broad voluntary confederation which might have forestalled the intercity warfare that gravely weakened Hellenic civilization.
The Mature Athenian Democracy
Athenian imperialism was one consequence of the
Persian Wars; another was the flowering of Athenian democracy and culture. The Athenian state
was a direct democracy, in which the citizens
themselves, not elected representatives, made the
laws. In the Assembly, which was open to all adult
male citizens and which met some forty times a
year, Athenians debated and voted on key issues of
state: they declared war, signed treaties, and spent
public funds. The lowliest cobbler, as well as the
wealthiest aristocrat, had the opportunity to express his opinion in the Assembly, to vote, to speak
46 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
before and submit motions to the Assembly, to
hold the highest public positions, and to receive
equal treatment before the law. By the middle of
the fifth century, the will of the people, as expressed
in the Assembly, was supreme.
The Council of Five Hundred (which had been
established by Cleisthenes to replace Solon’s
Council of Four Hundred) managed the ports,
military installations, and other state properties
and prepared the agenda for the Assembly. Because its members were chosen annually by lot
and could not serve more than twice in a lifetime,
the Council could never supersede the Assembly.
Chosen at random, its membership could not become a cabal of the most powerful and ambitious
citizens. Some 350 magistrates, also chosen by
lot, performed administrative tasks: collecting
fines, policing the city, repairing streets, inspecting markets, and so forth. In view of the special
competence that their posts required, the ten generals who led the army were not chosen by lot but
were elected by the Assembly.
Athens has been aptly described as a government of amateurs: there were no professional civil
servants, no professional soldiers and sailors, no
state judges, and no elected lawmakers. Ordinary
citizens performed the duties of government. Such
a system rested on the assumption that the average
citizen was capable of participating intelligently in
the affairs of state and that he would, in a spirit of
civic patriotism, carry out his responsibilities to
his city. In Athens of the fifth century b.c., excellence was equated with good citizenship—a concern
for the good of the community that outweighs personal aspirations. Indeed, to a surprisingly large
number of Athenians, politics was an overriding
concern, and they devoted considerable time and
thought to civic affairs. Those who allowed private
matters to take precedence over the needs of the
community were denounced as useless people
living purposeless lives.
Athenian democracy achieved its height in the
middle of the fifth century b.c. under the leadership of Pericles (c. 495–429 b.c.), a gifted statesman, orator, and military commander. In the
opening stage of the monumental clash with
Sparta, the Peloponnesian War (431–404 b.c.),
Pericles delivered an oration in honor of the Athenian war casualties. The oration, as reported by
Thucydides, the great Athenian historian of the
fifth century b.c., contains a glowing description
of the Athenian democratic ideal:
We are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of
the few. But while the law secures equal justice
to all alike in their private disputes, the claim
of excellence is also recognized; and when a
citizen is any way distinguished, he is [selected
for] public service . . . as the reward of merit.
Neither is poverty a bar, but a man may benefit
his country whatever may be the obscurity of
his condition. . . . There is no exclusiveness in
our public life, and in our private intercourse
we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry
with our neighbor if he does what he likes; we
do not put on sour looks at him which though
harmless are unpleasant. . . . [A] spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for
authority and for the laws. . . .5
Athenian democracy undoubtedly had its limitations and weaknesses. Modern critics point out
that resident aliens were almost totally barred
from citizenship and therefore from political participation. Slaves, who constituted about onefourth of the Athenian population, enjoyed none
of the freedoms that Athenians considered so
precious. The Greeks regarded slavery as a necessary precondition for civilized life; for some to be
free and prosperous, they believed, others had to
be enslaved. Slaves were generally prisoners of
war or captives of pirates. In Athens, some slaves
were Greeks, but most were foreigners. Slaves
usually did the same work as Athenian citizens:
farming, commerce, manufacturing, and domestic
chores. However, those slaves, including preadolescent children, who toiled in the mines suffered
a grim fate.
Athenian women were another group denied legal or political rights. Most Greeks, no doubt,
agreed with Aristotle, who said: “The male is by
nature superior, and the female inferior, and . . . the
one rules and the other is ruled.” A girl usually was
married at fourteen, to a man twice her age, and the
marriage was arranged by a male relative. The wedding day might be the first time that the young bride
saw her future husband. Although either spouse
could obtain a divorce, the children remained with
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The Decline of the City-States
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the father after the marriage was dissolved. Wives
did not dine with their husbands and spent much of
their time in the women’s quarters.
Athenian women were barred from holding public office and generally could not appear in court
without a male representative. They could not act
in plays, and, when they attended the theater, they
sat in the rear, away from the men. Greek women
received no formal education, although some young
women learned to read and write at home. Training in household skills was considered the only education a woman needed. Since it was believed that
a woman could not act independently, she was required to have a guardian—normally her father or
her husband—who controlled her property and
supervised her behavior. Convinced that financial
dealings were too difficult for women and that
they needed to be protected from strangers, men,
not women, did the marketing. When a woman
left the house, she was usually accompanied by a
male. The Athenian wife was treated as a minor;
in effect, she was her husband’s ward.
The flaws in Athenian democracy should not
cause us to undervalue its extraordinary achievement. The idea that the state represents a community of free, self-governing citizens remains a crucial
principle of Western civilization. Athenian democracy embodied the principle of the legal state—a
government based not on force, but on laws debated, devised, altered, and obeyed by free citizens.
This idea of the legal state could have arisen
only in a society that was aware of and respected
the rational mind. Just as the Greeks demythicized
nature, so too they removed myth from the sphere
of politics. Holding that government was something
that people create to satisfy human needs, the
Athenians regarded their leaders neither as gods
nor as priests, but as men who had demonstrated
a capacity for statesmanship.
Both democratic politics and systematic political
thought originated in Greece. There, people first
asked questions about the nature and purpose of
the state, rationally analyzed political institutions,
speculated about human nature and justice, and discussed the merits of various forms of government.
It is to Greece that we ultimately trace the idea of
democracy and all that accompanies it: citizenship,
constitutions, equality before the law, government
by law, reasoned debate, respect for the individual,
and confidence in human intelligence.
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THE DECLINE OF THE CITY-STATES
Although the Greeks shared a common language
and culture, they remained divided politically. A
determination to preserve city-state sovereignty
prevented the Greeks from forming a larger political grouping, which might have prevented the intercity warfare that ultimately cost the city-state
its vitality and independence. But the creation of a
Pan-Hellenic union would have required a radical
transformation of the Greek character, which for
hundreds of years had regarded the independent
city-state as the only suitable political system.
The Peloponnesian War
Athenian control of the Delian League frightened
the Spartans and their allies in the Peloponnesian
League. Sparta and the Peloponnesian states decided
on war because they saw a dynamic and imperialistic Athens as a threat to their independence. At stake
for Athens was control over the Delian League,
which gave Athens political power and contributed
to its economic prosperity. Neither Athens nor
Sparta anticipated the catastrophic consequences
that the war would have for Greek civilization.
The war began in 431 b.c. and ended in 404 b.c.
When a besieged Athens, with a decimated navy
and a dwindling food supply, surrendered, Sparta
dissolved the Delian League, left Athens with only
a handful of ships, and forced the city to pull down
its long walls—ramparts designed to protect it
against siege weapons.
The Peloponnesian War shattered the spiritual
foundations of Hellenic society. During its course,
men became brutalized—cities were sacked and
captives murdered—selfish individualism triumphed over civic duty, moderation gave way to
extremism, and in several cities, including Athens,
politics degenerated into civil war between oligarchs and democrats. Oligarchs, generally from
the wealthier segments of Athenian society, wanted
to concentrate power in their own hands by depriving the lower classes of political rights. Democrats,
generally from the poorer segment of society, sought
to preserve the political rights of all adult male
citizens. Strife between oligarchs and democrats
was quite common in the Greek city-states even
before the Peloponnesian War.
48 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
The Fourth Century
The Peloponnesian War was the great crisis of
Hellenic history. The city-states never fully recovered from their self-inflicted spiritual wounds. The
civic loyalty and confidence that had marked the
fifth century waned, and the fourth century was
dominated by a new mentality that the leaders of
the Age of Pericles would have abhorred. A concern for private affairs superseded devotion to the
general good of the polis. Increasingly, professionals, rather than ordinary citizens, administered the
tasks of government, and mercenaries began to replace citizen soldiers.
In the fourth century, the quarrelsome city-states
formed new systems of alliances and persisted in
their ruinous conflicts. While the Greek cities battered one another in fratricidal warfare, a new
power was rising in the north—Macedonia. To the
Greeks, the Macedonians, a wild mountain people
who spoke a Greek dialect and had acquired a
sprinkling of Hellenic culture, differed little from
other non-Greeks, whom they called barbarians. In
359 b.c., at the age of twenty-three, Philip II (382–
336 b.c.) ascended the Macedonian throne. Converting Macedonia into a first-rate military power,
he began a drive to become master of the Greeks.
Incorrectly assessing Philip’s strength, the Greeks
were slow to organize a coalition against Macedonia. In 338 b.c., at Chaeronea, Philip’s forces decisively defeated the Greeks, and all of Greece was his.
The city-states still existed, but they had lost their
independence. The world of the small, independent,
and self-sufficient polis was drawing to a close, and
Greek civilization was taking a different shape.
The Dilemma of Greek Politics
Philip’s conquest of the city-states points to fundamental weaknesses of Greek politics. Despite internal crisis and persistent warfare, the Greeks were
unable to fashion any other political framework
than the polis. The city-state was fast becoming an
anachronism, but the Greeks were unable to see
that, in a world moving toward larger states and
empires, the small city-state could not compete. An
unallied city-state, with its small citizen army, could
not withstand the powerful military machine that
Philip had created. A challenge confronted the
city-states: the need to shape some form of political
union, a Pan-Hellenic federation, that would end
the suicidal internecine warfare, promote economic
well-being, and protect the Greek world from hostile states. Because they could not respond creatively
to this challenge, the city-states ultimately lost their
independence to foreign conquerors.
The waning of civic responsibility among the
citizens was another reason for the decline of the
city-states. The vitality of the city-state depended on
the willingness of its citizens to put aside private
concerns for the good of the community. However,
although Athens had recovered commercially from
the Peloponnesian War, its citizens had suffered a
permanent change in character; the abiding devotion to the polis, which had distinguished the Age of
Pericles, greatly diminished during the fourth century. The factional strife, the degeneration of politics into personal ambition, the demagoguery, and
the fanaticism that Thucydides (see page 61) had
described persisted into the fourth century and were
aggravated by the economic discontent of the poor.
The Periclean ideal of citizenship dissipated as Athenians neglected the community to concentrate on
private affairs or sought to derive personal profit
from public office. The decline in civic responsibility
could be seen in the hiring of mercenaries to replace
citizen soldiers and in the indifference and hesitancy
with which Athenians confronted Philip. The Greeks
did not respond to the Macedonian threat as they
had earlier rallied to fight off the Persian menace
because the quality of citizenship had deteriorated.
Greek political life demonstrated the best and
worst features of freedom. On the one hand, as Pericles boasted, freedom encouraged active citizenship,
reasoned debate, and government by law. On the
other, as Thucydides lamented, freedom could degenerate into factionalism, demagoguery, unbridled selfinterest, and civil war. Because monarchy deprives
people of freedom and self-rule, the Greeks regarded
monarchy as a form of government appropriate for
uncivilized barbarians. But their political experience
showed that free men in a democracy are susceptible
to demagogues, will base political decisions on
keyed-up emotions rather than on cool reasoning,
and are capable of behaving brutally toward political
opponents. Moreover, Greek democracy, which valued freedom, was unable to overcome a weakness
that has afflicted despotic governments: an incautious attitude toward power that causes the state to
overreach itself. Such an attitude demonstrated the
self-destructive hubris that Greek moralists warned
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against. This is how Thucydides interpreted Athens’
disastrous Sicilian expedition during the Peloponnesian War. Driven by a mad passion to possess what
was beyond their reach, the Athenians brought ruin
to their city.
The Athenians, who saw no conflict between
imperialism and democracy, considered it natural
for stronger states to dominate weaker ones, an
attitude that helped to precipitate the destructive
Peloponnesian War. A particularly egregious example of this outlook occurred during that war
when Athenians decided to invade the island of
Melos despite the assurances of the Melians that
they represented no threat to Athens. As reported
by Thucydides, the Athenian envoys told the Melians that “the strong do what they have the power
to do, and the weak accept what they have to
accept.”6 When the Melians resisted, the Athenians slaughtered the men, enslaved the women
and children, and colonized the territory.
Greek politics also revealed both the capabilities
and the limitations of reason. Originally, the polis
was conceived as a divine institution, in which the
citizen had a religious obligation to obey the law. As
the rational and secular outlook became more pervasive, the gods lost their authority. When people no
longer regarded law as an expression of sacred traditions ordained by the gods but saw it as a merely
human contrivance, respect for the law diminished,
weakening the foundations of the society. The results were party conflicts, politicians who scrambled
for personal power, and moral uncertainty. Recognizing the danger, conservatives insisted that law
must again be conceived as issuing from the gods
and the city must again treat its ancient traditions
with reverence. Although the Greeks originated the
lofty ideal that human beings could regulate their
political life according to reason, their history,
marred by intercity warfare and internal violence,
demonstrates the extreme difficulties involved in
creating and maintaining a rational society.
PHILOSOPHY IN
THE HELLENIC AGE
The Greeks broke with the mythopoeic outlook of
the Near East and conceived a new way of viewing
nature and human society that is the basis of the
Western scientific and philosophical tradition. By
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the fifth century b.c., the Greeks had emancipated
thought from myth and gradually applied reason
to the physical world and to all human activities.
This emphasis on reason marks a turning point for
human civilization.
The development of rational thought in Greece
was a process, a trend, not a finished achievement.
The process began when some thinkers rejected
mythical explanations for natural phenomena. The
nonphilosophical majority of the people never entirely eliminated the language, attitudes, and beliefs of myth from their life and thought. For them,
the world remained controlled by divine forces,
which were appeased through cultic practices. Even
in the mature philosophy of Plato and Aristotle,
mythical modes of thought persisted. What is of immense historical importance, however, is not the
degree to which the Greeks successfully integrated
the norm of reason, but the fact that they originated
this norm, defined it, and consciously applied it to
intellectual concerns and social and political life.
The first theoretical philosophers in human history emerged in the sixth century b.c., in the Greek
cities of Ionia in Asia Minor. Curious about the
essential composition of nature and dissatisfied
with earlier creation legends, the Ionians sought
physical, rather than mythic-religious, explanations for natural occurrences. In the process, they
arrived at a new concept of nature and a new
method of inquiry. They maintained that nature
was not manipulated by arbitrary and willful
gods, nor was it governed by blind chance. The
Ionians said that there is an intelligible pattern to
nature; that nature contains a hidden structure—
principles of order or general laws—that govern
phenomena; and that these fundamental rules
were ascertainable by the human mind. They implied that the origin, composition, and structure of
the world can be investigated rationally and systematically. Thus, in seeking to account for rainbows, earthquakes, and eclipses, the Ionians
posited entirely naturalistic explanations that relied
on observation, had an awareness of cause and effect, and excluded the gods. This new outlook
marks the beginning of scientific thought.
What conditions enabled the Greeks to make
this breakthrough? Perhaps their familiarity with
Near Eastern achievements in mathematics and
science stimulated their ideas. But this influence
should not be exaggerated, says Greek scholar
John N. Theodorakopoulos, for Egyptians and
50 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
Mesopotamians “had only mythological systems
of belief and a knowledge of practical matters.
They did not possess those pure and crystal-clear
products of the intellect which we call science and
philosophy. Nor did they have any terminology to
describe them.”7 Rooted in mythological thinking, the ancient Near East experienced no eruption of theorizing about nature in pristine
philosophical and scientific terms as Greece did
beginning in the sixth century b.c.
One can only speculate about why the Greeks
achieved this breakthrough. Perhaps the poets’
conception of human behavior as subject to universal destiny was extended into the philosophers’
belief that nature was governed by law. Perhaps
the breakthrough was fostered by the Greeks’
freedom from a priesthood and rigid religious
doctrines that limit thought. Or perhaps Greek
speculative thought was an offspring of the city,
because if law governed human affairs, providing
balance and order, should not the universe also be
regulated by principles of order?
The Cosmologists: A Rational
Inquiry into Nature
The first Ionian philosophers are called cosmologists because they sought to discover the underlying principles of the universe: how nature came
to be the way it was. They held that some single,
eternal, and imperishable substance, which underwent various modifications, gave rise to all phenomena in nature.
Ionian philosophy began with Thales (c. 624–548
b.c.) of Miletus, a city in Ionia. He was a contemporary of Solon of Athens. Concerned with understanding the order of nature, Thales said that water
was the basic element, the underlying substratum
of nature, and that through some natural process—
similar to the formation of ice or steam—water gave
rise to everything else in the world.
Thales revolutionized thought because he omitted the gods from his account of the origins of nature and searched for a natural explanation of how
all things came to be. Thales also broke with the
commonly held belief that earthquakes were caused
by Poseidon, god of the sea, and offered instead a
naturalistic explanation for these disturbances: that
the earth floated on water, and when the water
experienced turbulent waves, the earth was rocked
by earthquakes.
Anaximander (c. 611–547 b.c.), another sixthcentury Ionian, rejected Thales’ theory that water
was the original substance. He rejected any specific
substance and suggested that an indefinite substance,
which he called the Boundless, was the source of all
things. He believed that from this primary mass,
which contained the powers of heat and cold, there
gradually emerged a nucleus, the seed of the world.
He said that the cold and wet condensed to form
the earth and its cloud cover, while the hot and dry
formed the rings of fire that we see as the moon, the
sun, and the stars. The heat from the fire in the sky
dried the earth and shrank the seas. From the warm
slime on earth arose life, and from the first sea creatures there evolved land animals, including human
beings. Anaximander’s account of the origins of the
universe and nature understandably contained fantastic elements. Nevertheless, by offering a natural
explanation for the origin of nature and life and by
holding that nature was lawful, it surpassed the creation myths.
Like his fellow Ionians, Anaximenes, who died
about 525 b.c., made the transition from myth to
reason. He maintained that a primary substance, air,
underlay reality and accounted for the orderliness of
nature. Air that was rarefied became fire, whereas
wind and clouds were formed from condensed air.
If the process of condensation continued, it produced
water, earth, and eventually stones. Anaximenes
also rejected the old belief that a rainbow was the
goddess Iris; instead, he said that the rainbow was
caused by the sun’s rays falling on dense air.
The Ionians have been called “matter philosophers” because they held that everything issued
from a particular material substance. Other thinkers
of the sixth century b.c. tried a different approach.
Pythagoras (c. 580–507 b.c.) and his followers, who
lived in the Greek cities in southern Italy, did not
find the nature of things in a particular substance,
but rather in mathematical relationships. The
Pythagoreans discovered that the intervals in the
musical scale can be expressed mathematically. Extending this principle of proportion found in sound
to the universe at large, they concluded that the cosmos also contained an inherent mathematical order
and harmony. Thus, the Pythagoreans shifted the
emphasis from matter to form, from the world of
sense perception to the logic of mathematics. The
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Pythagoreans were also religious mystics who believed in the immortality and transmigration of
souls. Consequently, they refused to eat animal flesh,
fearing that it contained former human souls.
Parmenides (c. 515–450 b.c.), a native of the
Greek city of Elea in southern Italy, argued that the
fundamental view of the Ionians that the universe
underwent change and development over time was
utterly mistaken. In developing his position, Parmenides applied to philosophical argument the logic
used by the Pythagoreans in mathematical thinking.
In putting forth the proposition that an argument
must be consistent and contain no contradictions,
Parmenides became the founder of formal logic.
Despite appearances, asserted Parmenides, reality—
the cosmos and all that is within it—is one, eternal,
and unchanging. It is made known not through the
senses, which are misleading, but through the mind;
not through experience, but through reason. Truth
is reached through abstract thought alone. Parmenides’ concept of an unchanging reality apprehended by thought alone influenced Plato and is the
foundation of metaphysics.
Democritus (c. 460–370 b.c.), from the Greek
mainland, renewed the Ionians’ concern with the
world of matter and reaffirmed their confidence in
knowledge derived from sense perception. But he
also retained Parmenides’ reverence for reason.
His model of the universe consisted of two
fundamental realities: empty space and an infinite
number of atoms. Eternal, indivisible, and imperceptible, these atoms moved in the void. All
things consisted of atoms, and combinations of atoms accounted for all change in nature. In a world of
colliding atoms, everything behaved according to
mechanical principles.
Concepts essential to scientific thought thus
emerged in embryonic form with the early Greek
philosophers: natural explanations for physical
occurrences (Ionians), the mathematical order of
nature (Pythagoras), logical proof (Parmenides),
and the mechanical structure of the universe
(Democritus). By giving to nature a rational, rather
than a mythical, foundation and by holding that
theories should be grounded in evidence and that
one should be able to defend them logically, the
early Greek philosophers pushed thought in a
new direction. This new approach made possible
theoretical thought and the systematization of
knowledge—as distinct from the mere observation
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and collection of data. It also allowed a critical
analysis of theories, whereas myths, accepted unconditionally on faith and authority, did not promote discussion and questioning.
This systematization of knowledge extended into
several areas. Greek mathematicians, for example,
organized the Egyptians’ practical experience with
land measurements into the logical and coherent science of geometry. They established mathematics as
an ordered system based on fundamental premises
and necessary connections, and they developed
logical procedures for arriving at mathematical
proofs. Both Babylonians and Egyptians had performed fairly complex mathematical operations,
but unlike the Greeks, they made no attempt to
prove underlying mathematical principles. In another area, Babylonian priests had observed the
heavens for religious reasons, believing that the
stars revealed the wishes of the gods. The Greeks
used the data collected by the Babylonians, but
not for a religious purpose; rather, they sought to
discover the geometrical laws that govern the motions of heavenly bodies.
A parallel development occurred in medicine. No
Near Eastern medical text explicitly attacked magical beliefs and practices. In contrast, Greek doctors
associated with the medical school of Hippocrates
(c. 460–c. 377 b.c.) asserted that diseases have a
natural, not a supernatural, cause. The following
tract on epilepsy, which was considered a sacred disease, illustrates the development of a scientific approach to medicine:
I am about to discuss the disease called
“sacred.” It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or sacred than any other disease, but has a
natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is
due to men’s inexperience, and to their wonder
at its peculiar character. Now . . . men continue
to believe in its divine origin because they are at
a loss to understand it. . . . My own view is that
those who first attributed a sacred character to
this malady were like the magicians, purifiers,
charlatans, and quacks of our own day; men
who claim great piety and superior knowledge.
Being at a loss, and having no treatment which
would help, they concealed and sheltered themselves behind superstition, and called this illness
sacred, in order that their utter ignorance might
not be manifest.8
52 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
The Sophists: A Rational
Investigation of Human Culture
In their effort to understand the external world,
the cosmologists had created the tools of reason.
These early Greek thinkers were developing a new
and profound awareness of the mind’s capacity
for theoretical thinking. Equally important, they
were establishing the mind’s autonomy—its ability to inquire into any subject, relying solely on its
own power to think. Greek thinkers then turned
away from the world of nature and attempted a
rational investigation of people and society, dismissing efforts to explain the social world through
inherited beliefs about the gods. The Sophists exemplified this shift in focus. They were professional teachers who wandered from city to city
teaching rhetoric, grammar, poetry, gymnastics,
mathematics, and music. The Sophists insisted
that it was futile to speculate about the first principles of the universe, for such knowledge was beyond the grasp of the human mind. Instead, they
urged that individuals improve themselves and
their cities by applying reason to the tasks of citizenship and statesmanship. The Western humanist
tradition owes much to the Sophists, who examined political and ethical problems, cultivated the
minds of their students, and invented formal secular education.
The Sophists answered a practical need in Athens, which had been transformed into a wealthy
and dynamic imperial state after the Persian Wars.
Because the Sophists claimed that they could teach
political arête—the skill to formulate the right laws
and policies for cities and the art of eloquence and
persuasion—they were sought as tutors by politically ambitious young men, especially in Athens.
The Sophists were philosophical relativists; that
is, they held that no truth is universally valid. Protagoras, a fifth-century Sophist, said that “man is
the measure of all things.” By this he meant that
good and evil, truth and falsehood are matters of
individual judgment; there are no universal standards that apply to all people at all times. Human
laws and ethical beliefs have evolved according to
a particular community’s needs; they are simply human contrivances and conventions, not objective
truths or standards written into nature.
In applying reason critically to human affairs,
the Sophists challenged the traditional religious and
moral values of Athenian society. Some Sophists
taught that speculation about the divine was useless; others went further and asserted that religion
was just a human invention to ensure obedience to
traditions and laws.
The Sophists also applied reason to law, with
the same effect: the undermining of traditional authority. The laws of a given city, they asserted, did
not derive from the gods; nor were they based on
any objective, universal, and timeless standards of
justice and good, for such standards did not exist.
The more radical Sophists argued that law was
merely something made by the most powerful citizens for their own benefit. This view had dangerous
implications: since law rested on no higher principle than might, it need not be obeyed.
Some Sophists combined this assault on law
with an attack on the ancient Athenian idea of
sophrosyne—moderation and self-discipline—
because it denied human instincts. Instead of moderation, they urged that people should maximize
pleasure and trample underfoot those traditions
that restricted them from fully expressing their
desires.
In subjecting traditions to the critique of reason, the radical Sophists provoked an intellectual
and spiritual crisis. Their doctrines encouraged
disobedience to law, neglect of civic duty, and
selfish individualism. These attitudes became
widespread during and after the Peloponnesian
War, dangerously weakening community bonds.
Conservatives sought to restore the authority of
law and a respect for moral values by renewing
allegiance to those sacred traditions undermined
by the Sophists.
Socrates: Shaping
the Rational Individual
Socrates (c. 469–399 b.c.), one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of Western civilization, took a different approach. He attacked the
Sophists’ relativism, holding that people should
regulate their behavior in accordance with universal values. While he recognized that the Sophists
taught skills, he felt that they had no insights into
questions that really mattered: What is the purpose of life? What are the values by which man
should live? How does man perfect his character?
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THE PARTHENON, ATHENS, 447–432 B.C. A masterpiece of the Doric style, the great
temple dedicated to Athena Parthenos (the Maiden), the patron goddess of the city,
was constructed through the efforts of Pericles. Its cult statue and sculptural reliefs
under its roofline were designed by the outstanding sculptor of the age, Phidias. In
post-Hellenistic times, it served as a Christian church and subsequently an Islamic mosque, until it was destroyed by an explosion in 1687. Between 1801 and
1812, the marble reliefs were removed by the English Lord Elgin and now reside
in the British Museum, in London. (Hirmer Verlag GmbH)
Here the Sophists failed, said Socrates; they taught
the ambitious to succeed in politics, but persuasive
oratory and clever reasoning do not instruct a man
in the art of living. According to Socrates, the
Sophists had attacked the old system of beliefs
but had not provided the individual with a constructive replacement.
Socrates’ central concern was the perfection of
individual human character, the achievement of
moral excellence. For Socrates, moral values did not
derive from a transcendent God, as they did for the
Hebrews. Individuals attained them by regulating
their lives according to objective standards arrived
at through rational reflection, that is, by making
reason the formative, guiding, and ruling agency
of the soul. For Socrates, true education meant the
shaping of character according to values discovered
through the active and critical use of reason.
54 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
inquiry called dialectics, or logical discussion. As
Socrates used it, a dialectical exchange between individuals or with oneself, a dialogue, was the essential
source of knowledge. It forced people out of their
apathy and smugness and compelled them to examine their thoughts critically; to confront illogical, inconsistent, dogmatic, and imprecise assertions; and
to express their ideas in clearly defined terms.
Dialectics demonstrated that the acquisition of
knowledge was a creative act. The human mind
could not be coerced into knowing; it was not a
passive vessel into which a teacher poured knowledge. The dialogue compelled the individual to play
an active role in acquiring the ideals and values by
which to live. In a dialogue, individuals became
thinking participants in a search for knowledge.
Through relentless cross-examination, Socrates induced the persons with whom he spoke to explain
and justify their opinions rationally, for only thus
did knowledge become a part of one’s being.
Dialogue implied that reason was meant to
be used in relations between human beings and that
they could learn from each other, help each other,
teach each other, and improve each other. It implied
further that the human mind could and should make
rational choices. To deal rationally with oneself and
others is the distinctive mark of being human.
Condemned to Death Socrates devoted much of
PORTRAIT STATUETTE OF SOCRATES, 200 B.C. Socrates
wanted to apply reason to accepted beliefs. In this
way, human beings could confront the most crucial
questions of human existence, particularly that of good
and evil. (©British Museum/Art Resource, N.Y.)
Socrates wanted to subject all human beliefs
and behavior to the scrutiny of reason and in this
way remove ethics from the realm of authority, tradition, dogma, superstition, and myth. He believed
that reason was the only proper guide to the most
crucial problem of human existence—the question
of good and evil.
Dialectics In urging Athenians to think rationally
about the problems of human existence, Socrates offered no systematic ethical theory and no list of ethical precepts. What he did supply was a method of
his life to what he believed was his mission, pricking the conscience of uncritical and smug Athenians and persuading them to think critically
about how they lived their lives. Through probing
questions, he tried to stir people out of their complacency and make them realize how directionless
and purposeless their lives were.
For many years, Socrates challenged Athenians
without suffering harm, for Athens was generally
distinguished by its freedom of speech and thought.
However, in the uncertain times during and immediately after the Peloponnesian War, Socrates
made enemies. When he was seventy, he was accused of corrupting the youth of the city and of not
believing in the city’s gods but in other, new divinities. Underlying these accusations was the fear that
Socrates was a troublemaker, a subversive who
threatened the state by subjecting its ancient and
sacred values to the critique of thought.
Socrates denied the charges and conducted
himself with great dignity at his trial, refusing to
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grovel and beg forgiveness. Instead, he defined
his creed:
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If you think that a man of any worth at all
ought to . . . think of anything but whether he
is acting justly or unjustly, and as a good or a
bad man would act, you are mistaken. . . . If
you were therefore to say to me, “Socrates, we
will not listen to [your accuser]. We will let
you go, but on the condition that you give up
this investigation of yours, and philosophy. If
you are found following these pursuits again
you shall die.” I say, if you offered to let me
go on these terms, I should reply: . . . As
long as I have breath and strength I will not
give up philosophy and exhorting you and
declaring the truth to every one of you whom
I meet, saying, as I am accustomed, “My good
friend, you are a citizen of Athens . . . are you
not ashamed of caring so much for making of
money and for fame and prestige, when you
neither think nor care about wisdom and truth
and the improvement of your soul?”9
Convicted by an Athenian court, Socrates was
ordered to drink poison. Had he attempted to appease the jurors, he probably would have been given
a light punishment, but he would not disobey the
commands of his conscience and alter his principles even under threat of death.
Socrates did not write down his philosophy and
beliefs. We are able to construct a coherent account
of his life and ideals largely through the works of
his most important disciple, Plato.
Plato: The Rational Society
Plato (c. 429–347 b.c.) used his master’s teachings
to create a comprehensive system of philosophy
that embraced both the world of nature and the
social world. Many of the problems discussed by
Western philosophers for the past two millennia
were first raised by Plato. We focus on two of his
principal concerns, the theory of Ideas and the
theory of the just state.
Theory of Ideas
Socrates had taught that universal standards of right and justice exist and are
arrived at through thought. Building on the insights
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55
of his teacher, Plato postulated the existence of a
higher world of reality, independent of the world
of things that we experience every day. This higher
reality, he said, is the realm of Ideas, or Forms—
unchanging, eternal, absolute, and universal standards of beauty, goodness, justice, and truth.
Truth resides in this world of Forms and not in
the world made known through the senses. For example, a person can never draw a perfect square,
but the properties of a perfect square exist in the
world of Forms. Similarly, the ordinary person derives an opinion of what beauty is only from observing beautiful things; the philosopher, aspiring to
true knowledge, goes beyond what he sees and tries
to grasp with his mind the Idea of beauty. The ordinary individual lacks a true conception of justice or
goodness; such knowledge is available only to the
philosopher, whose mind can leap from worldly
particulars to an ideal world beyond space and time.
Thus, true wisdom is obtained through knowledge
of the Ideas and not through the imperfect reflections of the Ideas that the senses perceive.
A champion of reason, Plato aspired to study
human life and arrange it according to universally
valid standards. In contrast to sophistic relativism,
he maintained that objective and eternal standards
do exist.
The Just State In adapting the rational legacy of
Greek philosophy to politics, Plato constructed a
comprehensive political theory. What the Greeks
had achieved in practice—the movement away from
mythic and theocratic politics—Plato accomplished
on the level of thought: the fashioning of a rational
model of the state.
Like Socrates, Plato attempted to resolve the
problem caused by the radical Sophists: the undermining of traditional values. Socrates had tried to
dispel this spiritual crisis through a moral transformation of the individual, based on reason, whereas
Plato wanted the entire community to conform to
rational principles. Plato said that if human beings
are to live an ethical life, they must do so as citizens
of a just and rational state. In an unjust state, people cannot achieve Socratic wisdom, for their souls
will mirror the state’s wickedness.
Plato had experienced the ruinous Peloponnesian War and witnessed Socrates’ trial and
execution. Disillusioned by the corruption of Athenian morality and democratic politics, he concluded
56 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
that under the Athenian constitution neither the
morality of the individual Athenian nor the good of
the state could be enhanced. He became convinced
that Athens required moral and political reform
founded on Socratic philosophy.
In his great dialogue The Republic, Plato devised an ideal state based on standards that would
rescue his native Athens from the evils that had
befallen it. For Plato, the just state could not be
founded on tradition (for inherited attitudes did
not derive from rational standards) or on the doctrine of might being right (a principle taught by
radical Sophists and practiced by Athenian statesmen). A just state, in his view, had to conform to
universally valid principles and aim at the moral
improvement of its citizens, not at increasing its
power and wealth. Such a state required leaders
distinguished by their wisdom and virtue rather
than by sophistic cleverness and eloquence.
Fundamental to Plato’s political theory as formulated in The Republic was his criticism of Athenian
democracy. An aristocrat by birth and temperament, Plato believed that it was foolish to expect the
common man to think intelligently about foreign
policy, economics, or other vital matters of state.
Yet the common man was permitted to speak in
the Assembly and to vote, and he could also be
selected, by lot, for executive office. A second
weakness of democracy for Plato was that leaders
were chosen and followed for nonessential reasons, such as persuasive speech, good looks, wealth,
and family background.
A third danger of democracy was that it could
degenerate into anarchy, said Plato. Intoxicated by
liberty, the citizens of a democracy could lose all
sense of balance, self-discipline, and respect for
law: “The citizens become so sensitive that they
resent the slightest application of control as intolerable tyranny, and in their resolve to have no
master they end up by disregarding even the law,
written or unwritten.”10
As the democratic city falls into disorder, a
fourth weakness of democracy will become evident.
A demagogue—often a wealthy, handsome, war
hero of noble birth with an ability to stir the multitude with words—will be able to gain power by
promising to plunder the rich to benefit the poor.
Increasingly the tyrant throws off all constraints
and uses his authority to satisfy his desire for power
and possessions. To retain his hold over the state,
the tyrant “begins by stirring up one war after another, in order that the people may feel their need of
a leader.”11 Because of these inherent weaknesses
of democracy, Plato insisted that Athens would be
governed properly only when the wisest people,
the philosophers, attained power.
Plato rejected the fundamental principle of Athenian democracy: that the ordinary citizen is capable of participating sensibly in public affairs.
People would not entrust the care of a sick person
to just anyone, said Plato, nor would they allow a
novice to guide a ship during a storm. Yet, in a
democracy, amateurs were permitted to run the
government and to supervise the education of the
young; no wonder Athenian society was disintegrating. Plato believed that these duties should be
performed only by the best people in the city, the
philosophers, who would approach human problems with reason and wisdom derived from knowledge of the world of unchanging and perfect Ideas.
He asserted that only these possessors of truth
would be competent to rule.
Plato divided people into three groups: those
who demonstrated philosophical ability should
be rulers; those whose natural bent revealed
exceptional courage should be soldiers; and those
driven by desire, the great masses, should be producers (tradespeople, artisans, or farmers). In The
Republic, the philosophers were selected by a
rigorous system of education that was open to all
children. Those not demonstrating sufficient intelligence or strength of character were to be weeded
out to become workers or warriors, depending on
their natural aptitudes. After many years of education and practical military and administrative
experience, the philosophers were to be entrusted
with political power. If they had been properly
educated, the philosopher-rulers would not seek
personal wealth or personal power; their only
concern would be pursuing justice and serving the
community. The philosophers were to be absolute
rulers. Although the people would have lost their
right to participate in political decisions, they
would have gained a well-governed state, whose
leaders, distinguished by their wisdom, integrity,
and sense of responsibility, sought only the common good. Only thus, said Plato, could the individual and the community achieve well-being.
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The purpose of The Republic was to warn Athenians that without respect for law, wise leadership,
and proper education for the young, their city would
continue to degenerate. Plato wanted to rescue the
city-state from disintegration by re-creating the
community spirit that had vitalized the polis—and
he wanted to re-create it not on the basis of mere
tradition but on a higher level, with philosophical
knowledge. The social and political institutions of
Athens, Plato thought, must be reshaped according
to permanent and unalterable ideals of truth and
justice, and this could be done only when power
and wisdom were joined. He aimed to fashion a just
individual and a just state by creating conditions
that permitted reason to prevail over the appetites,
self-interest, and class and party loyalties.
Aristotle: Synthesis of Greek Thought
Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) stands at the apex of Greek
thought because he achieved a creative synthesis
of the knowledge and theories of earlier thinkers.
The range of Aristotle’s interests and intellect is
extraordinary. He was the leading expert of his
time in every field of knowledge, with the possible
exception of mathematics.
Aristotle undertook the monumental task of organizing and systematizing the thought of the PreSocratics, Socrates, and Plato. He shared with the
natural philosophers a desire to understand the
physical universe; he shared with Socrates and
Plato the conviction that reason was a person’s
highest faculty and that the polis was the primary
formative institution of Greek life.
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57
principles is the ultimate aim of knowledge. But
unlike Plato, he did not turn away from the world
of things to obtain such knowledge. Possessing a
scientist’s curiosity to understand nature, Aristotle
respected knowledge obtained through the senses.
For Aristotle, the Forms were not located in a
higher world outside and beyond phenomena but
existed in things themselves. He said that, through
human experience with such things as men, horses,
and white objects, the essence of man, horse, and
whiteness can be discovered through reason; the
Form of Man, the Form of Horse, and the Form of
Whiteness can be determined. These universals,
which apply to all men, all horses, and all white
things, were for both Aristotle and Plato the true
objects of knowledge. For Plato, these Forms existed independently of particular objects: the Forms
for men or horses or whiteness or triangles or temples existed, whether or not representations of
these Ideas in the form of material objects were
made known to the senses. For Aristotle, however,
universal Ideas could not be determined without
examination of particular things. Whereas Plato’s
use of reason tended to stress otherworldliness,
Aristotle brought philosophy back to earth.
By holding that certainty in knowledge comes
from reason alone and not from the senses, Plato
was predisposed toward mathematics and metaphysics—pure thought that transcends the world
of change and material objects. By stressing the importance of knowledge acquired through the rational examination of sense experience, Aristotle
favored the development of empirical sciences—
physics, biology, zoology, botany, and other disciplines based on the observation and investigation
of nature and the recording of data.
Critique of Plato’s Theory of Ideas To the practical and empirically minded Aristotle, the Platonic
notion of an independent and separate world of
Forms beyond space and time seemed contrary to
common sense. To comprehend reality, said Aristotle, one should not escape into another world. For
him, Plato’s two-world philosophy suffered from
too much mystery, mysticism, and poetic fancy;
moreover, Plato undervalued the world of facts and
objects revealed through sight, hearing, and touch,
a world that was important to Aristotle. Like
Plato, Aristotle desired to comprehend the essence
of things and held that understanding universal
Ethical Thought Like Socrates and Plato, Aristotle believed that a knowledge of ethics was possible and that it must be based on reason, for this
is what distinguishes human beings from other forms
of life. In his Nicoamachean Ethics, the good life
was the examined life; it meant making intelligent
decisions when confronted with specific problems.
People could achieve happiness when they exercised
the distinctively human trait of reasoning, when
they applied their knowledge relevantly to life, and
when their behavior was governed by intelligence
and not by whim, tradition, or authority.
58 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
Aristotle recognized, however, that people are
not entirely rational and that the passionate element
in the human personality can never be eradicated
or ignored. According to Aristotle, surrendering
completely to desire meant descending to the level
of beasts, but denying the passions and living as
an ascetic was a foolish and unreasonable rejection
of human nature. Aristotle maintained that by proper
training, people could learn to regulate their desires.
They could achieve moral well-being, or virtue, when
they avoided extremes of behavior and rationally
chose the way of moderation. “Nothing in excess”
is the key to Aristotle’s ethics.
into rogues and petty rascals.” The rich are unwilling “to submit to authority . . . for when they are
boys, by reason of the luxury in which they are
brought up, they never learn even at school, the
habit of obedience.” Consequently, the wealthy “can
only rule despotically.” On the other hand, the poor
“are too degraded to command and must be ruled
like slaves.”13 Middle-class citizens are less afflicted
by envy than the poor and are more likely than the
rich to view their fellow citizens as equals.
Political Thought Aristotle’s Politics complements
his Ethics. To live the good life, he said, a person
must do so as a member of a political community.
Only the polis would provide people with an opportunity to lead a rational and moral existence,
that is, to fulfill their human potential. With this
assertion, Aristotle demonstrated a typically Greek
attitude. Also in typically Greek fashion, Aristotle
held that enhancing the good of the community is
nobler and more virtuous than doing good for
oneself, however worthy the act.
Like Plato, Aristotle presumed that political life
could be rationally understood and intelligently directed. He emphasized the importance of the rule of
law. He placed his trust in law rather than in individuals, for individuals are subject to passions. Aristotle recognized that at times laws should be altered,
but he recommended great caution; otherwise, people would lose respect for law and legal procedure.
Tyranny and revolution, Aristotle said, can
threaten the rule of law and the well-being of the
citizen. To prevent revolution, the state must maintain “the spirit of obedience to law. . . . Men should
not think it slavery to live according to the rule of
the constitution, for it is their salvation.”12
Aristotle held “that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class [that
is, those with a moderate amount of property], and
that those states are likely to be well-administered
in which the middle class is large and stronger if
possible than the other classes [the wealthy and the
poor].” Both the rich, who excel in “beauty, strength,
birth, [and] wealth,” and the poor, who are “very
weak or very much disgraced,” find it “difficult to
follow rational principles. Of these two the one sort
grow into violence and great criminals, the other
The classical age of Greek art spans the years from
the end of the Persian Wars (479 b.c.) to the death
of Alexander the Great (323 b.c.). During this period, standards were established that would dominate Western art until the emergence of modern
art in the late nineteenth century.
Greek art coincided with Greek achievement in
all other areas. Like Greek philosophy and politics, it too applied reason to human experience and
made the transition from a mythopoeic-religious
world-view to a world perceived as orderly and
rational. It gradually transformed the supernatural religious themes with which it was at first preoccupied into secular human themes. Classical art
was representational—that is, it strove to imitate
reality, to represent the objective world realistically, as it appeared to the human eye.
Artists carefully observed nature and human
beings and sought to achieve an exact knowledge
of human anatomy; they tried to portray accurately the body at rest and in motion. They knew
when muscles should be taut or relaxed, one hip
lower than the other, the torso and neck slightly
twisted—in other words, they succeeded in transforming marble or bronze into a human likeness
that seemed alive. Yet although it was realistic and
naturalistic, Greek art was also idealistic, aspiring
to a finer, more perfect representation of what was
seen and depicting the essence and form of a thing
more truly than the way it actually appeared.
Thus, a Greek statue resembled no specific individual but revealed a flawless human form, without wrinkles, warts, scars, or other imperfections.
In achieving an accurate representation of objects and in holding that there were rules of beauty
that the mind could discover, the Greek artist
ART
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ZEUS, C. 460 B.C. This bronze statue was found off the Greek coast in 1926.
Although his face is still stylized, his athletic body pulsates with life, Archive
capturing the essence of Zeus as the omnipotent ruler of the gods. (The Art
Archive/National Archaeological Museum Athens/Gianni Dagli Orti)
employed an approach consistent with the new scientific outlook. The Greek temple, for example, is
an organized unity, obeying nature’s laws of equilibrium and harmony; classical sculpture captures
the basic laws that govern life in motion. Such art,
based on reason, draws the mind’s attention to the
clear outlines of the outer world; at the same time,
it directs the mind’s attention to the mind itself,
making human beings the center of an intelligible
world and the masters of their own persons.
Greek artists, just like Greek philosophers,
proclaimed the importance and creative capacity of
the individual. They exemplified the humanist
spirit that characterized all aspects of Greek culture.
Classical art placed people in their natural environment, made the human form the focal point of
attention, and exalted the nobility, dignity, selfassurance, and beauty of the human being.
POETRY
AND
DRAMA
Like philosophers and artists, Greek poets and
dramatists gave expression to the rise of the individual and the emerging humanist values. One of
the earliest and best of the Greek poets was
Sappho; she lived around 600 b.c., on the island of
Lesbos. Sappho established a school to teach music
60 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
and singing to well-to-do girls and to prepare them
for marriage. With great tenderness, Sappho wrote
poems of friendship and love.
Pindar (c. 518–438 b.c.) was another Greek
lyric poet. In his poem of praise for a victorious
athlete, Pindar expressed the aristocratic view of
excellence. Although life is essentially tragic—
triumphs are short-lived, misfortunes are many,
and ultimately death overtakes all—man must still
demonstrate his worth by striving for excellence.
The high point of Greek poetry is drama, an art
form that originated in Greece. In portraying the
sufferings, weaknesses, and triumphs of individuals,
Greek dramatists shifted attention from the gods
to human beings. Greek drama evolved as a continuous striving toward humanization and individualization. Just as a Greek sculptor shaped a clear
visual image of the human form, so a Greek dramatist brought the inner life of human beings,
their fears and hopes, into sharp focus and tried to
find the deeper meaning of human experience. Thus,
both art and drama evidenced the growing selfawareness of the individual.
Drama originated in the religious festivals honoring Dionysus, the god of wine and agricultural
fertility. A profound innovation in these sacred performances, which included choral songs and dances,
occurred in the last part of the sixth century b.c.:
Thespis, the first actor known to history, stepped
out of the chorus and engaged it in dialogue. By
separating himself from the choral group, Thespis
demonstrated a new awareness of the individual.
With only one actor and a chorus, however,
the possibilities for dramatic action and human
conflicts were limited. Then Aeschylus introduced
a second actor in his dramas, and Sophocles a
third. Dialogue between individuals thus became
possible. The Greek actors wore masks, and by
changing them, each actor could play several roles
in the same performance. This flexibility allowed
the dramatists to depict the clash and interplay of
human wills and passions on a greater scale. By
the middle of the fifth century b.c., tragedies were
performed regularly as civic festivals.
A development parallel to Socratic dialectics—
dialogue between thinking individuals—occurred
in Greek drama. By setting characters in conflict
against each other, dramatists showed individuals
as active subjects, responsible for their behavior
and decisions.
Like the natural philosophers, Greek dramatists
saw an inner logic to the universe; they called this
logic Fate or Destiny. Both physical and social
worlds obeyed laws. When people were stubborn,
narrow-minded, arrogant, or immoderate, they
were punished. The order in the universe required
it, said Sophocles:
The man who goes his way
Overbearing in the word and deed,
who fears no justice,
Honors no temples of the gods—
May an evil destiny seize him.
And punish his ill-starred pride.14
In being free to make decisions, the dramatists said,
individuals have the potential for greatness, but in
choosing wrongly, unintelligently, they bring disaster to themselves and others.
Also like philosophy, Greek tragedy entailed
rational reflection. Tragic heroes were not passive
victims of fate. They were thinking human beings
who felt a need to comprehend their position, explain the reasons for their actions, analyze their
feelings, and respond to their fate with insight.
The essence of Greek tragedy lies in the tragic
heroes’ struggle against cosmic forces and insurmountable obstacles, which eventually crush them.
But what impressed the Greek audience (and impresses us today) was not the vulnerability or
weaknesses of human beings, but their courage
and determination in the face of these forces.
The three great Athenian tragedians were Aeschylus (525–456 b.c.), Sophocles (c. 496–406 b.c.),
and Euripides (c. 485–406 b.c.). Aeschylus believed
that the world was governed by divine justice,
which could not be violated with impunity; when
individuals evinced hubris (overweening pride or
arrogance), which led them to overstep the bounds
of moderation, they had to be punished. Another
principal theme was that through suffering people
acquired knowledge: the terrible consequences of
sins against the divine order should remind all to
think and act with moderation and caution.
Sophocles maintained that individuals should
shape their character in the way a sculptor shapes a
form: according to laws of proportion. In his view,
when the principles of harmony were violated by
immoderate behavior, a person’s character would
be thrown off balance and misfortune would strike.
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History
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In Antigone, Sophocles raised a question that is
timeless: should individual conscience, which is
prompted by a higher law, prevail over the laws of
the state when the two are in conflict?
The rationalist spirit of Greek philosophy permeated the tragedies of Euripides. Like the Sophists, Euripides subjected the problems of human
life to critical analysis and challenged human conventions. His plays carefully scrutinized the role of
the gods, women’s conflicts, the horrors of war,
the power of passion, and the prevalence of human suffering and weakness. Euripides blended a
poet’s insight with the psychologist’s probing to
reveal the tangled world of human passions and
souls in torment.
Greek dramatists also wrote comedies. Aristophanes (c. 448–c. 380 b.c.), the greatest of the Greek
comic playwrights, lampooned Athenian statesmen
and intellectuals and censured government policies.
Behind Aristophanes’ sharp wit lay a deadly seriousness; he sought an end to the ruinous Peloponnesian War and a reaffirmation of traditional values,
which the Sophists had undermined.
HISTORY
The Mesopotamians and the Egyptians kept annals that purported to narrate the deeds of gods
and their human agents, the priest-kings or godkings. These chronicles, filled with religious sayings, royal records, and boastful accounts of
military campaigns, are devoid of critical analysis
and interpretation. The Hebrews valued history,
but, believing that God acted in human affairs,
they did not remove historical events from the
realm of religious-mythical thought. The Greeks
initiated a different approach to the study of history. For them, history was not a narrative about
the deeds of gods, as it was for the Egyptians and
Mesopotamians, or the record of God’s wrath or
benevolence, as it was for the Hebrews; instead, it
dealt with human actions and state policies.
As the gods were eliminated from the nature
philosophers’ explanations for the origins of things
in the natural world, mythical elements were also
removed from the writing of history. Greek historians asked themselves questions about the deeds
of people, based their answers on available evidence, and wrote in prose, the language of rational
❖
61
thought. They not only narrated events but also
examined causes.
Herodotus
Often called the “father of history,” Herodotus
(c. 484–c. 424 b.c.) wrote a history of the Persian
Wars. The central theme of this book, entitled The
Histories, is the contrast between Near Eastern despotism and Greek freedom and the subsequent clash
of these two world-views in the wars. Though Herodotus found much to praise in the Persian Empire, he was struck by a lack of freedom and by
what he considered barbarity. He emphasized that
the mentality of the free citizen was foreign to the
East, where men were trained to obey the ruler’s
commands absolutely. Not the rule of law but the
whim of despots prevailed in the East.
Another theme evident in Herodotus’ work was
punishment for hubris. In seeking to become king
of both Asia and Europe, Xerxes had acted arrogantly; although he behaved as if he were superhuman, “he too was human, and was sure to be
disappointed of his great expectations.”15 Like the
Greek tragedians, Herodotus drew universal moral
principles from human behavior.
In several ways, Herodotus was a historian rather
than a teller of tales. First, he asked questions about
the past, instead of merely repeating ancient legends; he tried to discover what had happened and
the motivations behind the actions. Second, he demonstrated at times a cautious and critical attitude
toward his sources of information. Third, although
the gods appeared in his narrative, they played a
far less important role than they did in Greek popular mythology. Nevertheless, by retaining a belief
in the significance of dreams, omens, and oracles
and by allowing divine intervention, Herodotus fell
short of being a thoroughgoing rationalist. His writings contain the embryo of rational history. Thucydides brought it to maturity.
Thucydides
Thucydides (c. 460–c. 400 b.c.) also concentrated
on a great political crisis confronting the Hellenic
world: the Peloponnesian War. Living in Periclean
Athens, whose lifeblood was politics, Thucydides
62 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
regarded the motives of statesmen and the acts of
government as the essence of history. He did not
just catalogue facts but sought those general concepts and principles that the facts illustrated. His
history was the work of an intelligent mind trying
to make sense of his times.
Thucydides applied to the sphere of political history a rationalist empiricism. He strove for factual
accuracy and drew conclusions based on a critical
analysis of events and motives. He searched for the
truth underlying historical events and attempted to
present it objectively. From the Sophists, Thucydides learned that the motives and reactions of human beings follow patterns. Therefore, a proper
analysis of the events of the Peloponnesian War
would reveal general principles that govern human
behavior. He intended his history to be a source of
enlightenment for future ages, a possession for all
time, because the kinds of behavior that caused the
conflict between Sparta and Athens would recur
regularly through history, for human nature is unchanging and predictable.
In Thucydides’ history, there was no place for
myths, for legends, for the fabulous—all hindrances
to historical truth. He recognized that a work of
history was a creation of the rational mind and not
an expression of the poetic imagination. The historian seeks to learn and to enlighten, not to entertain.
Rejecting the notion that the gods interfere in
history, Thucydides looked for the social forces
and human decisions behind events. Undoubtedly,
he was influenced by Hippocratic doctors, who
frowned on divine explanations for disease and
distinguished between the symptoms of a disease
and its causes. Where Herodotus occasionally
lapsed into supernatural explanations, Thucydides
wrote history in which the gods were absent, and
he denied their intervention in human affairs. For
Thucydides, history was the work of human beings. And the driving force in history was men’s
will to power and domination.
In addition to being a historian, Thucydides was
also an astute and innovative political thinker with
a specific view of government, statesmen, and international relations. He warned against the dangers of extremism unleashed by the strains of war,
and he believed that when reason was forsaken, the
state’s plight would worsen. He had contempt for
statesmen who waged war lightly, acting from impulse, reckless daring, and an insatiable appetite for
territory. Although Thucydides admired Athens
for its democratic institutions, rule of law, sense of
civic duty, and cultural achievements, he recognized an inherent danger in democracy: the emergence of demagogues, who rise to power by stirring
up the populace.
Political scientists, historians, and statesmen still
turn to Thucydides for insights into the realities of
power politics, the dangers of political fanaticism, the
nature of imperialism, the methods of demagogues,
and the effects of war on democratic politics.
THE HELLENISTIC AGE:
THE SECOND STAGE
OF GREEK CIVILIZATION
Greek civilization, or Hellenism, passed through
three distinct stages: the Hellenic Age, the Hellenistic Age, and the Greco-Roman Age. The Hellenic
Age began around 800 b.c. with the early citystates, reached its height in the fifth century b.c.,
and endured until the death of Alexander the Great
in 323 b.c. At that time, the ancient world entered
the Hellenistic Age, which ended in 30 b.c. when
Egypt, the last major Hellenistic state, fell to
Rome. The Greco-Roman Age lasted five hundred
years, encompassing the period of the Roman Empire up to the collapse of the Empire’s western half
in the last part of the fifth century a.d.
Although the Hellenistic Age absorbed the heritage of classical (Hellenic) Greece, its style of civilization changed. During the first phase of Hellenism,
the polis was the center of political life. The polis
gave Greeks an identity, and only within the polis
could a Greek live a good and civilized life. With the
coming of the Hellenistic Age, this situation changed.
Kingdoms and empires eclipsed the city-state in
power and importance. Even though cities retained
a large measure of autonomy in domestic affairs,
they lost their freedom of action in foreign affairs
because they were now dominated by monarchs.
Monarchy, the essential form of government in
the Hellenistic world, had not been admired by
the Greeks of the Hellenic Age. They had agreed
with Aristotle that monarchy was suitable only for
non-Greeks, who lacked the capacity to govern
themselves.
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63
BATTLE OF ISSUS, ROMAN MOSAIC. The subject of the mosaic is believed to be Alexander’s
victory over the Persian king, Daritus III, in 333 b.c. at the battle of Issus. On the right
side of the mosaic, we see a realistic battle scene filled with both commotion and
emotion. (Scala/Ministero per i Beni e le Attitvità culturali/Art Resource, N.Y.)
Now, however, as a result of Alexander the
Great’s conquests of the lands between Greece and
India, tens of thousands of Greek soldiers, merchants, and administrators settled in eastern lands.
Their encounters with the different peoples and cultures of the Near East widened the Greeks’ horizon
and weakened their ties to their native cities. Because of these changes, the individual had to define
a relationship not to the narrow, parochial society
of the polis, but to the larger world. The Greeks
had to examine their place in a world more complex, foreign, and threatening than the polis. They
had to fashion a conception of a community that
would be more comprehensive than the city-state.
Hellenistic philosophers struggled with these
problems of alienation and community. They sought
to give people the inner strength to endure in a
world where the polis no longer provided security.
In this new situation, philosophers no longer
assumed that the good life was tied to the affairs
of the city. Freedom from emotional stress—not
active citizenship and social responsibility—was
the avenue to the good life. This pronounced tendency of people to withdraw into themselves and
seek release from anxiety and depression helped
shape a cultural environment that contributed to
the spread and triumph of Christianity in the
Greco-Roman Age.
In the Hellenic Age, Greek philosophers had a
limited conception of humanity, dividing the world
into Greek and barbarian. In the Hellenistic Age, the
intermingling of Greeks and peoples of the Near
East—the fusion of different ethnic groups and cultures scattered over great distances—caused a shift in
focus from the city to the oikoumene (the inhabited
world); parochialism gave way to cosmopolitanism
and universalism as people began to think of themselves as members of a world community. Philosophers came to regard the civilized world as one city,
the city of humanity. This new concept was their
response to the decline of the city-state and the quest
for an alternative form of community.
64 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
By uniting the diverse nationalities of the Mediterranean world under one rule, Rome gave political expression to the Hellenistic philosophers’
longing for a world community. But the vast and
impersonal Roman Empire could not rekindle the
sense of belonging, the certainty of identity, that
came with being a citizen of a small polis. In time,
a resurgence of the religious spirit, particularly in
the form of Christianity, helped to overcome the
feeling of alienation by offering an image of community that stirred the heart.
Alexander the Great
After the assassination of Philip of Macedon in
336 b.c., his twenty-year-old son, Alexander, succeeded to the throne. Alexander inherited a proud and
fiery temperament from his mother. From his tutor
Aristotle, Alexander gained an appreciation for Greek
culture, particularly the Homeric epics. Undoubtedly,
the young Alexander was stirred by these stories of
legendary heroes, especially Achilles, and their striving for personal glory. He also acquired military skills
and qualities of leadership from his father.
Alexander inherited from Philip an overriding
policy of state: the invasion of Persia. With an army
of thirty-five thousand men, Macedonians and
Greeks combined, he crossed into Asia Minor in
334 b.c. and eventually advanced all the way to
India. In these campaigns, Alexander proved himself to be a superb strategist and leader of men. Winning every battle, his army carved an empire that
stretched from Greece to India.
The world after Alexander differed sharply from
the one that existed before he took up the sword.
Alexander’s conquests brought West and East closer
together, marking a new epoch. Alexander himself
helped to implement this transformation, whether
intentionally or unwittingly. He took a Persian
bride, arranged for eighty of his officers and ten
thousand of his soldiers to marry Near Eastern
women, and planned to incorporate thirty thousand Persian youths into his army. Alexander
founded Greek-style cities in Asia, where Greek settlers mixed with the native population.
As Greeks acquired greater knowledge of the
Near East, the parochialism of the polis gave way
to a world outlook. As trade and travel between
West and East expanded, as Greek merchants and
soldiers settled in Asiatic lands, and as Greek culture spread to non-Greeks, the distinctions between
barbarian and Greek lessened. Although Alexander
never united all the peoples in a world-state, his
career pushed the world in a new direction, toward
a fusion of disparate peoples and the intermingling
of cultural traditions.
The Competing Dynasties
In 323 b.c., Alexander, not yet thirty-three years
old, died after a sickness that followed a drinking
party. After his premature death, his generals engaged in a long and bitter struggle to see who would
succeed the conqueror. Since none of the generals
or their heirs had enough power to hold together
Alexander’s vast empire, the wars of succession ended
in a stalemate. By 275 b.c., the empire was fractured into three dynasties: the Ptolemies in Egypt,
the Seleucids in Asia, and the Antigonids in Macedonia. Macedonia, Alexander’s native country,
continued to dominate the Greek cities, which periodically tried to break its hold. Later, the kingdom
of Pergamum in Western Asia Minor emerged as the
fourth Hellenistic monarchy.
In the third century b.c., Ptolemaic Egypt was
the foremost power in the Hellenistic world. The
Seleucid Empire, which stretched from the
Mediterranean to the frontiers of India and encompassed many different peoples, attempted to extend its power in the west but was resisted by the
Ptolemies. Finally, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III
(223–187 b.c.) defeated the Ptolemaic forces and
established Seleucid control over Phoenicia and Palestine. Taking advantage of Egypt’s defeat, Macedonia seized several of Egypt’s territories.
Rome, a new power, became increasingly drawn
into the affairs of the quarrelsome Hellenistic kingdoms. By the middle of the second century b.c., it
had imposed its will upon them. From that time
on, the political fortunes of the western and eastern Mediterranean were inextricably linked.
Cosmopolitanism
Hellenistic society was characterized by a mingling of peoples and an interchange of cultures.
Greek traditions spread to the Near East, and
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The Hellenistic Age: The Second Stage of Greek Civilization
Seleucid Monarchy
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ARABIAN DESERT
Arabian Sea
Map 3.2 The Division of Alexander’s Empire and the Spread of
Hellenism None of Alexander’s generals could hold together the vast empire,
which fractured into competing dynasties.
Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hebrew, and Persian
traditions—particularly religious beliefs—moved
westward. A growing cosmopolitanism replaced
the parochialism of the city-state. Although the
rulers of the Hellenistic kingdoms were Macedonians and their high officials and generals were
Greeks, the style of government was modeled after
that of the ancient oriental kingdoms. In the Hellenic Age, the law had expressed the will of the
community, but in this new age of monarchy,
the kings were the law. To promote loyalty, the
Macedonian rulers encouraged the oriental cultic
practice of worshiping the king as a god or as a
representative of the gods. In Egypt, for example,
the priests conferred on the Macedonian king the
same divine powers and titles traditionally held by
Egyptian pharaohs; in accordance with ancient
tradition, statues of the divine king were installed
in Egyptian temples, suffusing political power
with supernatural authority, in marked contrast
to the democratic spirit of the Greek Assembly.
Following Alexander’s lead, the Seleucids founded
cities in the East patterned after the city-states of
Greece. The cities, which were often founded to protect trade routes and as fortresses against hostile
tribes, adopted the political institutions of Hellenic
Greece, including a popular assembly and a council.
Hellenistic kings generally did not intervene in the
cities’ local affairs. Thousands of Greeks settled in
these cities, which were Greek in architecture and
contained Greek schools, temples, theaters (where
performances of classical plays were staged), and
gymnasia. Gymnasia were essentially places to exercise, train in sports, and converse, but some had
libraries and halls where public lectures and competitions of orators and poets were held. Hellenistic
66 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
kings brought books, paintings, and statues from
Greece to their cities. Hellenistic cities, inhabited by
tens of thousands of people from many lands and
dominated by a Hellenized upper class, served as
centers and agents of Hellenism, which non-Greeks
adopted. The cities in Egypt and Syria saw the emergence of a native elite who spoke Greek, wore Greekstyle clothing, and adopted Greek customs. Koine
(or shared language), a form of spoken Greek spread
by soldiers, administrators, merchants, teachers, and
others, became a common tongue throughout much
of the Mediterranean world.
The greatest city of the time and the one most
representative of the Hellenistic Age was Alexandria in Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great.
Strategically located at one of the mouths of the
Nile, Alexandria became a center of commerce and
culture. The most populous city of the Mediterranean world, Alexandria at the beginning of the
Christian era contained perhaps a million people:
Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians, Greeks, Jews,
Syrians, and Arabs. The city was an unrivaled commercial center; goods from the Mediterranean
world, East Africa, Arabia, and India circulated in
its market-places. This cosmopolitan center also attracted poets, philosophers, physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians.
All phases of cultural life were permeated by cultural exchange. Sculpture showed the influence of
many lands. Historians wrote world histories, not
just local ones. Greek astronomers worked with
data collected over the centuries by the Babylonians.
The Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek
for use by Greek-speaking Jews, and some Jewish
thinkers, admiring Greek learning, expressed Jewish religious ideas in philosophical terms: God was
identified with reason and Moses’ Law with the rational order of the universe. Greeks increasingly
demonstrated a fascination with oriental religious
cults. Philosophers helped to break down the barriers between peoples by asserting that all inhabit a
single fatherland.
The spread of Greek civilization from the Aegean to the Indus River gave the Hellenistic world
a cultural common denominator, but Hellenization did not transform the East and make it one
with the West. Hellenization was limited almost
entirely to the cities, and in many urban centers it
was often only a thin veneer. Many Egyptians in
Alexandria learned Greek, and some assumed
Greek names, but for most, Hellenization did not
go much deeper. In the countryside, there was not
even the veneer of Greek culture. Retaining traditional attitudes, the countryside in the East resisted
Greek ways. In the villages, local and traditional
law, local languages, and family customs remained
unchanged; religion, the most important ingredient of the civilizations of the Near East, also kept
its traditional character.
HELLENISTIC THOUGHT
AND CULTURE
Hellenistic culture rested on a Hellenic foundation,
but it also revealed new trends: a heightened universalism and a growing individualism.
History
The leading historian of the Hellenistic Age was
Polybius (c. 200–118 b.c.), whose history of the
rise of Rome is one of the great works of historical
literature. Reflecting the universal tendencies of
the Hellenistic Age, Polybius endeavored to explain
how Rome had progressed from a city-state to a
world conqueror. As a disciple of Thucydides,
Polybius sought rational explanations for human
events. Like Thucydides, he relied on eyewitness
accounts (including his own personal experiences),
checked sources, and strove for objectivity.
Art
Hellenistic art, like Hellenistic philosophy, expressed
a heightened awareness of the individual. Whereas
Hellenic sculpture aimed to depict ideal beauty—the
perfect body and face—Hellenistic sculpture, moving from idealism to realism, captured individual
character and expression, often of ordinary people.
Scenes of daily life were realistically depicted.
Science
During the Hellenistic Age, Greek scientific achievement reached its height. When Alexander invaded
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Asia Minor, the former student of Aristotle brought
along surveyors, engineers, scientists, and historians, who continued with him into Asia. The vast
amount of data on botany, zoology, geography, and
astronomy collected by Alexander’s staff stimulated
an outburst of activity. Hellenistic science, says historian Benjamin Farrington, stood “on the threshold of the modern world. When modern science
began in the sixteenth century, it took up where the
Greeks left off.”16
Because of its state-supported museum, Alexandria attracted leading scholars and superseded
Athens in scientific investigation. The museum contained a library of more than half a million volumes,
as well as botanical gardens and an observatory. It
was really a research institute, in which some of the
best minds of the day studied and worked.
Alexandrian doctors advanced medical skills.
They improved surgical instruments and techniques
and, by dissecting bodies, added to anatomical
knowledge. Through their research, they discovered
organs of the body not known until then, made
the distinction between arteries and veins, divided
nerves into those constituting the motor and the
sensory systems, and identified the brain as the
source of intelligence. Their investigations brought
knowledge of anatomy and physiology to a level
that was not significantly improved until the sixteenth century a.d.
Knowledge in the fields of astronomy and mathematics also increased. Eighteen centuries before
Copernicus, the Alexandrian astronomer Aristarchus (310–230 b.c.) said that the sun was the center of the universe, that the planets revolved around
it, and that the stars were situated at great distances
from the earth. But these revolutionary ideas were
not accepted, and the belief in an earth-centered
universe persisted. In geometry, Euclid, an Alexandrian mathematician who lived around 300 b.c.,
creatively synthesized earlier developments. Euclid’s
hundreds of geometric proofs, derived from reasoning alone—his conclusions flowed logically and
flawlessly from given assumptions—are a profound
witness to the power of the rational mind.
Eratosthenes (c. 275–194 b.c.), an Alexandrian
geographer, sought a scientific understanding of the
enlarged world. He divided the planet into climatic
zones, declared that the oceans are joined, and, with
extraordinary ingenuity and accuracy, measured
the earth’s circumference. Archimedes of Syracuse
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67
OLD MARKET WOMAN, C. SECOND CENTURY B.C. Hellenistic genre sculpture depicted people in everyday situations, as individuals, rather than as types. Her stooped
shoulders, weighed down by her groceries, also suggest the harsh physical conditions that have worn her
down over the years. (The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Rogers Fund, 1909 [03.09]/Art Resource, N.Y.)
(287–212 b.c.), who studied at Alexandria, was a
mathematician, a physicist, and an ingenious inventor. His mechanical inventions, including war
engines, dazzled his contemporaries. However, in
typically Greek fashion, Archimedes dismissed his
practical inventions, preferring to be remembered
as a theoretician.
68 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
Philosophy
Hellenistic thinkers preserved the rational tradition
of Greek philosophy, but they also transformed it,
for they had to adapt their thought to the requirements of a cosmopolitan society. In the Hellenic
Age, the starting point of philosophy was the citizen’s relationship to the city; in the Hellenistic Age,
the point of departure was the solitary individual’s
relationship to humanity, the individual’s destiny in
a complex world. Philosophy tried to deal with the
feeling of alienation—of not belonging—resulting
from the weakening of the individual’s attachment
to the polis and sought a conception of community
that corresponded to the social realities of a world
grown larger. It aspired to make people ethically
independent so that they could achieve happiness in
a hostile and competitive world. As the philosopher
Epicurus said: “Empty are the words of that philosopher who offers no therapy for human suffering. For just as there is no use in medical expertise
if it does not give therapy for bodily disease, so too
there is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the
suffering of the soul.”17 To “expel the suffering of
the soul”—to conquer fear and anxiety and to
achieve happiness—said Hellenistic philosophers,
people must not allow themselves to be troubled by
cares and concerns that are ultimately trivial. In
striving for tranquillity of mind and relief from
conflict, Hellenistic thinkers reflected the general
anxiety that pervaded their society.
Epicureanism Two principal schools of philosophy arose in the Hellenistic world: Epicureanism
and Stoicism. In the tradition of Plato and Aristotle,
Epicurus (342–270 b.c.) founded a school in Athens at the end of the fourth century b.c. Epicurus
broke with the attitude of the Hellenic Age in significant ways. Unlike classical Greek philosophers,
Epicurus, reflecting the Greeks’ changing relationship to the city, taught the value of passivity and
withdrawal from civic life. To him, citizenship was
not a prerequisite for individual happiness. Wise persons, said Epicurus, would refrain from engaging
in public affairs, for politics is marred by clashing
factions and treachery that could deprive them of
their self-sufficiency, their freedom to choose and
to act. Nor would wise individuals pursue wealth,
power, or fame, as the pursuit would only provoke
anxiety. For the same reason, wise persons would
not surrender to hate or love, desires that distress
the soul. They would also try to live justly, because
those who behave unjustly are burdened with troubles. Nor could people find happiness if they worried about dying or pleasing the gods.
To Epicurus, dread that the gods punished people
in this life and could inflict suffering after death was
the principal cause of anxiety. To remove this source
of human anguish, he favored a theory of nature
that had no place for supernatural intervention in
nature or in people’s lives. Therefore, he adopted the
physics of Democritus, which taught that all things
consist of atoms in motion. In a universe of colliding
atoms, there could be no higher intelligence ordering
things; there was no room for divine activity. Epicurus taught that the gods probably did exist, but that
they did not influence human affairs; consequently,
individuals could order their own lives.
People could achieve happiness, said Epicurus,
when their bodies were “free from pain” and their
minds “released from worry and fear.” Although
Epicurus wanted to increase pleasure for the individual, he rejected unbridled hedonism. Because he
believed that happiness must be pursued rationally,
he urged avoidance of the merely sensuous pleasures
that have unpleasant aftereffects (such as overeating and excessive drinking). In general, Epicurus
espoused the traditional Greek view of moderation
and prudence. By opening his philosophy to men
and women, slave and free, Greek and barbarian,
and by separating ethics from politics, Epicurus
fashioned a philosophy adapted to the post-Alexandrian world of kingdoms and universal culture.
Stoicism
Around the time when Epicurus
founded his school, Zeno (335–263 b.c.) also
opened a school in Athens. Zeno’s teachings,
called Stoicism (because his school was located in
the stoa, or colonnade), became the most important philosophy in the Hellenistic world. Epicurus
backed away from civic participation and political life as snares that deprived the individual of
self-sufficiency. Stoics, however, developed a new
formula for the individual’s membership in a political community. By teaching that the world
constituted a single society, Stoicism gave theoretical expression to the world-mindedness of the
age. Through its concept of a world-state, the city
of humanity, Stoicism offered an answer to the
problem of community and alienation posed by
the decline of the city-state. By stressing inner
strength in dealing with life’s misfortunes, it
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69
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE MAP OF THE WORLD BY ERATOSTHENES (C. 275–194 B.C.).
Geographical knowledge expanded enormously among the Hellenistic Greeks. The
first systematic scientific books on geography were credited to Eratosthenes, head of
the Alexandrian Library, the greatest scientific and humanistic research center in the
Hellenistic world. Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the earth with remarkable accuracy for his time. His map illustrates the limits of the world known to the
Greeks. (From John Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age [Thames and
Hudson, 1979]. Reprinted by permission of Thames and Hudson Ltd.)
opened an avenue to individual happiness in a
world fraught with uncertainty.
At the core of Stoicism was the belief that built
into the universe was a principle of order, variously
called Divine Reason (Logos), the Divine Fire, God—
more an impersonal force than a living being. This
ruling principle underlay reality and permeated all
things; it ordered the cosmos according to law. The
Stoics reasoned that, being part of the universe, people too shared in the Logos that operated throughout
the cosmos. Inherent in every human soul, and discovered through reason, the Logos enabled people to
act virtuously and intelligently and to comprehend
the principles of order that governed nature. This
natural law provided human beings with an awareness of what is and is not correct behavior, especially
when dealing with other human beings. The virtuous
person lived in accordance with natural law, which
was the avenue to both virtue and happiness. Natural
law alone commanded ultimate obedience. Because
reason was common to all, human beings were essentially brothers and fundamentally equal. Reason
gave individuals dignity and enabled them to recognize and respect the dignity of others. To the Stoics,
all people—Greek and barbarian, free and slave, rich
and poor—were fellow human beings, and one law,
the law of nature, applied to everyone. What people
had in common as fellow human beings far outweighed differences based on culture. Thus, the
Stoics, like the Hebrews, arrived at the idea of the
oneness of humanity.
Like Socrates, the Stoics believed that a person’s
distinctive quality was the ability to reason and that
happiness came from the disciplining of emotions
by the rational part of the soul. Also like Socrates,
the Stoics maintained that individuals should progress morally, should perfect their character. In the
Stoic view, wise persons ordered their lives according to the natural law, the law of reason, that underlay the cosmos. This harmony with the Logos would
give them the inner strength to resist the torments
inflicted by others, by fate, and by their own
passionate natures. Self-mastery and inner peace,
or happiness, would follow. Such individuals would
70 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
remain undisturbed by life’s misfortunes, for their
souls would be their own. Even slaves were not denied this inner freedom; although their bodies were
subjected to the power of their masters, their minds
still remained independent and free.
Stoicism had an enduring influence on the Western
mind. To some Roman political and legal thinkers,
the Empire fulfilled the Stoic ideal of a world community, in which people of different nationalities held
citizenship and were governed by a worldwide law
that accorded with the law of reason, or natural law,
operating throughout the universe. Stoic beliefs—that
by nature we are all members of one family, that each
person is significant, that distinctions of rank and race
are of no account, and that human law should not
conflict with natural law—were incorporated into
Roman jurisprudence, Christian thought, and modern liberalism. There is continuity between the Stoic
idea of natural law—a moral order that underlies
nature—and the principle of inalienable rights stated
in the American Declaration of Independence. In the
modern age, the principle of natural law provided
theoretical justification for the idea of human rights
as the birthright of each individual.
THE GREEK ACHIEVEMENT:
REASON, FREEDOM, HUMANISM
Like other ancient peoples, the Greeks warred, massacred, and enslaved; they could be cruel, arrogant,
contentious, and superstitious; and they often violated their own ideals. But their achievement was unquestionably of profound historical significance.
Western thought essentially begins with the Greeks,
who first defined the individual by the capacity to reason. It was the great achievement of the Greek spirit
to rise above magic, miracles, mystery, authority, and
custom and to discover the procedures and terminology that permit a rational understanding of nature
and society. Every aspect of Greek civilization—
science, philosophy, art, drama, literature, politics,
historical writing—showed a growing reliance on
human reason and a diminishing dependence on the
gods and mythical thinking.
In Mesopotamia and Egypt, people had no
clear conception of their individual worth and no
understanding of political liberty. They were not
citizens, but subjects marching to the command of a
ruler whose power originated with the gods. Such
royal power was not imposed on an unwilling population; it was religiously accepted and obeyed.
In contrast, the Greeks created both civic politics
and political freedom. They saw the state as a community of free citizens who made laws that served
the common good and disputes between citizens
were decided by a jury of one’s peers, not by the
whims of a ruler or his officials. The citizens had no
master other than themselves. The Greeks held that
men are capable of governing themselves, and they
regarded active participation in public affairs as a
duty. For the Greeks, the state was a civilizing agent,
permitting people to live the good life. Greek political thinkers arrived at a conception of the rational,
or legal, state: a state in which law was an expression of reason, not of whim or divine commands; of
justice, not of might; of the general good of the
community, not of self-interest.
The Greeks also gave to Western civilization a
conception of inner, or ethical, freedom. People
were free to choose between shame and honor,
cowardice and duty, moderation and excess. The
heroes of Greek tragedy suffered not because they
were puppets being manipulated by higher powers, but because they possessed the freedom of decision. The idea of ethical freedom reached its
highest point with Socrates, who shifted the focus
of thought from cosmology to the human being
and the moral life. To shape oneself according to
ideals known to the mind—to develop into an autonomous and self-directed person—became for
the Greeks the highest form of freedom.
During the Hellenistic Age, the Greeks, like the
Hebrews earlier, arrived at the idea of universalism,
the oneness of humanity. Stoic philosophers taught
that all people, because of their ability to reason, are
fundamentally alike and can be governed by the
same laws. This idea is at the root of the modern
principle of natural, or human rights, which are
the birthright of each individual.
Underlying everything accomplished by the
Greeks was a humanist attitude toward life. The
Greeks expressed a belief in the worth, significance,
and dignity of the individual. They called for the
maximum cultivation of human talent, the full development of human personality, and the deliberate
pursuit of excellence. In valuing the human personality, the Greek humanists did not approve of living
without restraints; they aimed at creating a higher
type of man. Such a man would mold himself according to worthy standards and make his life as
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The Greek Achievement: Reason, Freedom, Humanism
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71
Primary Source
Euripides, Medea
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The Greek dramatist Euripides applied a keen critical spirit to the great question of individual life versus the demands of society. His play Medea focuses
on a strong-willed woman whose despair at being
cast off by her husband leads her to exact a terrible
revenge. But in the following passage, Medea might
speak for the deepest feelings of any Greek woman.
It was everything to me to think well of
one man,
And he, my own husband, has turned out
wholly vile.
Of all things which are living and can form a
judgement
We women are the most unfortunate creatures.
Firstly, with an excess of wealth it is required.
For us to buy a husband and take for our bodies
A master; for not to take one is even worse.
And now the question is serious whether we
take
A good or bad one; for there is no easy escape.
For a woman, nor can she say no to her
marriage.
She arrives among new modes of behaviour
and manners,
harmonious and flawless as a work of art. This aspiration required effort, discipline, and intelligence.
Despite their lauding of the human being’s creative
capacities, the Greeks were not naive about human
nature. Rather, intensely aware of the individual’s
inherent capacity for evil, Greek thinkers repeatedly warned that without the restraining forces of
law, civic institutions, moral norms, and character
training, society would be torn apart by the savage
elements within human nature. But fundamental to
the Greek humanist outlook was the belief that human beings could master themselves. Although
people could not alter the course of nature, for
there was an order to the universe over which
And needs prophetic power, unless she has
learnt at home,
How best to manage him who shares the bed
with her.
And if we work out all this well and carefully.
And the husband lives with us and lightly
bears his yoke,
Then life is enviable. If not, I'd rather die.
A man, when he's tired of the company in
his home,
Goes out of the house and puts an end to his
boredom
And turns to a friend or companion of his
own age.
But we are forced to keep our eyes on one alone.
What they say of us is that we have a
peaceful time
Living at home, while they do the fighting in war:
How wrong they are! I would very much
rather stand
Three times in the front of battle than bear
one child.
From Euripides Medea translated by Robin Robertson,
published by Vintage. Reprinted by permission of The
Random House Group Ltd.
neither they nor the gods had control, the humanist
believed that people could control their own lives.
Contemporary humanists continue to derive inspiration and guidelines from the literary, artistic, and
philosophical creations of the ancient Greeks.
By discovering theoretical reason, by defining
political freedom, and by affirming the worth and
potential of human personality, the Greeks broke
with the past and founded the rational and humanist tradition of the West. “Had Greek civilization never existed,” says the poet W. H. Auden,
“we would never have become fully conscious,
which is to say that we would never have become,
for better or worse, fully human.”18
72 ❖ 3 The Greeks: From Myth to Reason
❖
See our website for additional materials: www.
cengage.com/history/perry/westcivbrief7e
NOTES
1. H. D. F. Kitto, The Greeks (Baltimore: Penguin
Books, 1957), p. 60.
2. Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1945), vol.1, p. 8.
❖
❖
16. Benjamin Farrington, Greek Science (Baltimore:
Penguin Books, 1961), p. 301.
17. Quoted in Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Reason (New York, W. W. Norton, 2000), pp. 283–
284.
18. W. H. Auden, ed., The Portable Greek Reader
(New York: Viking, 1952), p. 38.
3. Kitto, The Greeks, p. 78.
SUGGESTED READING
4. Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de
Sélincourt (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954),
p. 493.
Boardman, John, et al., The Oxford History of
the Classical World (1986). Essays on all facets of
Greek culture.
Bruhschwig, Jacques, and Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd, eds.,
Greek Thought (2000). Essays dealing with many
areas of Greek thought.
Cartledge, Paul, Alexander the Great (2004). A
recent biography.
Chamoux, François, Hellenistic Civilizations (2003).
An overview of the period.
Ferguson, John, The Heritage of Hellenism (1973).
A good introduction to Hellenistic culture.
Fine, John V. A., The Ancient Greeks (1983). An
up-to-date, reliable analysis of Greek history.
Gottlieb, Anthony, The Dream of Reason (2000).
Superb chapters on Greek philosophy.
Grant, Michael, A Social History of Greece and Rome
(1992). Essays on the rich, the poor, women, slaves,
and freedmen and freedwomen.
Hooper, Finley, Greek Realities (1978). A literate and
sensitive presentation of Greek society and
culture.
Jaeger, Werner, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture
(1939–1944). A three-volume work on Greek culture
by a distinguished classicist. The treatment of Homer,
the early Greek philosophers, and the Sophists in
volume 1 is masterful.
Koester, Helmut, Introduction to the New Testament,
Volume One: History, Culture, and Religion of the
Hellenistic Age (1982). An intelligent guide.
Levi, Peter, The Pelican History of Greek Literature
(1985). Sound insights into Greek writers.
Meier, Christian, The Greek Discovery of Politics
(1990). Answers the question: How was it that
5. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans.
B. Jowett (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881), bk. 2,
chap. 37.
6. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex
Warner (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1954),
p. 360.
7. John N. Theodorakopoulos, “The Origins of
Science and Philosophy,” in History of the Hellenic World: The Archaic Period (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975),
p. 438.
8. Quoted in George Sarton, A History of Science,
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1952), vol. 1, pp. 355–356.
9. Plato, Apology, trans. F. J. Church, rev. R. D.
Cummings (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956),
secs. 16–17.
10. Plato, The Republic, trans. F. M. Cornford (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1945), p. 289.
11. Ibid., p. 293.
12. Politics, in Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard
McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941),
pp. 1246, 1251.
13. Ibid., pp. 1220–1221.
14. Sophocles, Oedipus the King, trans. Bernard
M. W. Knox (New York: Washington Square
Press, 1959), p. 61.
15. Herodotus, The Histories, p. 485.
Suggested Reading
Greek civilization, unlike all others preceding it,
gave birth to democracies?
Powell, Anton, ed., The Greek World (1995). Essays
by authorities on all phases of Greek life.
Stockton, David, The Classical Athenian Democracy (1990). The evolution and nature of Greek
democracy.
❖
73
Tripolitis, Antonia, Religions of the Hellenistic Age
(2002). An excellent survey.
Wallbank, F. W., The Hellenistic World (1982). A survey of the Hellenistic world; makes judicious use of
quotations from original sources.